Who’s Afraid Of Jeremy Corbyn?

As the Labour leadership - and deputy leadership - race develops, the candidates set out their respective stalls, put forward their vision: it’s what grown-ups do. Having that discussion, making that case stands in stark contrast, remember, to the last time the Tories chose a new leader. Then, David Davis, who actually stood for something, was eclipsed by Young Dave, because the latter, being a slick PR practitioner, sounded better.

Behold he who sits in judgment on Labour ...

Yes, it can be argued that the New Labour project under the leadership of the blessed Tone was strong on presentation, but the action of those first days after the 1997 election victory showed that there was substance. The substance is what is being argued right now. And into that argument this week has arrived a genuine left-wing candidate, Jeremy Corbyn, who has decided to make a pitch for the party leadership.

He won’t win it, and he and his supporters will know that. But that does not mean his vision is therefore invalid. Corbyn is entitled to make his case; that is what party democracy is all about. No-one should have a problem with that, but someone who is no longer a Labour member certainly does: step forward the Telegraph’s not-at-all-celebrated blues artiste Whinging Dan Hodges, who has thrown a wobbler at hearing of Corbyn’s candidature.

“On the soft Left is Andy Burnham. In the centre is Yvette Cooper. And on the Right is Liz Kendall. Labour’s path to victory lies somewhere amid this ground that has been staked out”, he observes. No shit, Sherlock. That the Tel pays money for this - small wonder it’s heading down the tubes. But, as Clive James might have said, I digress. Hodges does not take long to engage wibble overdrive as soon as Corbyn’s name is mentioned.

He claims that Corbyn is, effectively, demanding his name is on the ballot (yeah, the left, they’re just like in the 70s, see?), and concludes “this is the problem with Jeremy Corbyn being given a free entry into the debate about Labour’s post election future. Corby [sic] believes last month’s defeat was a false flag operation. And so do all his supporters”. What is Hodges on about (apart from using his platform to snipe at Owen Jones)?

... and behold his fan base

Quoting Jones on the potential of a Corbyn candidature, “He could nail why Labour lost: the implosion in Scotland, and the consequent anti-SNP hysteria; the lie of ‘overspending’; and the lack of any coherent alternative”, he tells that Corbyn “could do all those things. In the same way people meticulously dissect the footage of the collapse of the Twin Towers, and identify rockets and demolition charges and UFOs”. Er, what?

Hell’s teeth, it’s only someone putting forward their name as a leadership contender. And, in case Hodges has forgotten, he stropped out of the Labour party over Mil The Younger’s refusal to back that military action against the Assad régime in Syria - which would have aligned us with what became ISIS. As so often - one has only to look at who is lapping up Hodges’ drivel - he is nothing more than a useful idiot for the right.

Dan Hodges has a problem with a political party engaging in the democratic process - unless it does as he says it should. He’s got a bigger problem with the likes of Owen Jones. But what he does not have is any say in Labour’s leadership choice - because, rather than stay and argue his case, he ran away snivelling and bawling.