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YO-YO AND THE GNU

HIPSTERS LOVE CORBYN

Eyewear , the blog and company have had a rollercoaster love affair with Mr Jeremy Corbyn, current leader of the British Labour party. Anticipating his leadership win a few years ago, we published the first updated book on his life and ideas - which sold over 3,000 copies; several of our editors either voted for him or supported him. Then he appeared to falter. Our genuine love slackened.

But now he has pulled us back in, slowly, surely, with his principled, if grizzled, brand of authentic populism. His campaign has been masterful, and, mostly, blemish-free. He has appeared strong, confident, funny, and caring. And he has been infuriatingly clear - he does not like nuclear war or killing people.

Ms May, the current PM, has been a disaster.  Her strong, stable slogan is now a cruel albatross, like something the centurions slapped on the dying Christ. She has turned on her own manifesto - a bizarre first - and appeared weak in public debate, when she deigned to appear. Moreover, her 7 years in charge, first at the Home Office, then Number 10, of safety for the public have not lead to more safety. Ms May is not all bad - she is probably a good Christian, for example - whatever that may mean. She obviously cares, but has a genuine inability to express any thing approaching empathy with real suffering people.

The major issue though is that Ms May is, for reasons of her own making, too-closely tied to hard right Tories who want no deal, or a very Hard Brexit. She is also fawning when it comes to Trump - and loathe to criticise the more unpleasant people she toadies up to in the world community. It is a cruel fact that Tories who blame Corbyn for supporting terrorists are the ones who sell them the weapons.

A Labour minority government, or even a very weakened Tory government mandate, are to be preferred to a May in June landslide. But more vitally, Mr Corbyn deserves our vote, because he actually supports more policing, less tuition fees, more fairness in taxation, less violence abroad, and represents the sort of change the post-2008 crash world requires. He is imperfect - as are we all - but he is not just a grey gnu, or whatever Boris J is calling him today. He is decent, and compassionate. It would be splendid if Britain sought to support such a person.
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