Now it’s time for Labour to decide…

The UK General Election result suggests that the Labour party needs to make one crucial decision during the so called `period of reflection`. Do they want to win a General Election again or are they content to remain in opposition indefinitely? Regardless of personalities or leaders or pressure groups this is the moment they have to decide. Political parties do have to make this kind of decision and it’s wrong too for them to cling doggedly onto `traditional` values when the world has changed so much. Surely politicians are there to carry out the will of the people whatever that may be? They may guide, persuade, cajole, even lecture us but as yesterday proved the people will have their own way. The Conservatives in general- and Boris Johnson in particular- now seem to understand this. Its time Labour did too- or else they won’t be in government any time soon.

Jeremy Corbyn’s second half victory!

It’s been an odd General Election so far here in the UK. Called unexpectedly the process meant hastily assembled manifestos and a feeling that whatever any of the parties said, Brexit was the real elephant in the room. If not a room actually in the elephant. At times its been difficult to decide who is the least capable- the party leaders or the people interviewing them. The rest of the media in its usual manner is either excessively pro one side or the other or else determined to reduce the entire thing to humourous memes and gimmicky records. Which is really going to put the serious issues across don’t you think? Anyone who thinks this election in particular is about having a laugh needs to wake up quick. Having winced at the Andrew Neill interviews and noting that only Jeremy Paxman got a word in during the Jeremy Paxman interviews, tonight we arrived at what last time was the best live interview scenario Question Time. Instead of journalists with bigger agendas than the politicians, we had the general public asking Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn things. Not together though. And finally it proved to be Jeremy Corbyn’s moment. If Ed Miliband’s stumble from the giant question mark platform was the symbolic moment you knew he’d lost, Corbyn’s eloquent, at times impassioned performance tonight is the sort of thing that sways floating voters. In the current weird political climate would you bet against a victory?

The Inconvenient Truth about Jeremy Corbyn

Nobody was too surprised to see Jeremy Corbyn re-elected as Labour Party leader except perhaps those who had vehemently opposed him. Their vigour in doing so failed to achieve anything except both reinforce and strengthen Corbyn’s hold on the post which he seems likely to keep until the next election at least. His opponents’ strategy appeared to be to treat both the incumbent and the Momentum movement as some kind of invading enemy. “They” have infiltrated our party, it was declared and made it unelectable. The inconvenient truth that they failed to grasp- or perhaps did not even recognise- is that Corbyn is the most traditional Labour leader in over thirty years. His and Momentum’s ideals are much, much closer to Labour than anything Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband had to offer. If you flip it over it is Blair and co who were the invaders, changing Labour beyond recognition, and now the party has taken back its purpose and re-linked with its origins.