Neither press nor politicians have learned from the experience of the Tories’ disastrous election campaign in 1945, when, in the wake of the ending of the war in Europe, the coalition Government was disbanded and Winshton faced the prospect of having to submit himself to the electorate. The way in which he tried to frighten voters against the Labour Party backfired spectacularly; Attlee was elected in a landslide.
Nope, he still doesn't look scary
What did Churchill get so wrong? He claimed that a “Socialist” Government - then as now the favoured method of demonising the centre-left - would have needed “some form of a Gestapo” in order to implement its programme. Painting pictures of a dystopian future did not work. But for the inmates of the Northcliffe House bunker, such thoughts have not been allowed to enter, as Jeremy Corbyn has to be demonised.
To this end, the Mail On Sunday has recruited a freelance - once again, it seems none of the permanent staff fancied the assignment - and David Thomas has penned the article under the headline “Prime Minister Corbyn... and the 1,000 days that destroyed Britain: As this brilliant imagining of a Corbyn premiership reveals, Tories who gloat over Labour's woe should be careful what they wish for”. And brilliant it is not.
Thomas, whose works include a significant amount of fiction, has transferred his talents to the pretence of how a Corbyn premiership would look. The fiction aspect has been particularly useful to him, as he pretends Corbyn would refuse to go to Buck House to see Her Maj (puerile nonsense), that Labour activists would deselect MPs who dissented (ditto), and the Bank of England would lose its independence (ditto).
Then Thomas loses it: “The seizure of the Bank told Britain’s creditors that their money was no longer safe”. Why so? Was the Bank of England a bit iffy before Tone and Pa Broon arrived in Downing Street? And how about this pearler: “The Germans made it plain that Britain could not escape the medicine taken by other EU nations that had found themselves in crisis. London would have to take its orders from Berlin, just as Athens had done”. Hello David! We’re not in the Eurozone, remember?
But it is in his prediction of who will win the US Presidential Elections next year - and in 2020 - that Thomas really sells the pass: “With Corbyn abandoning the nuclear deterrent and slashing defence spending, US President Donald Trump announced that America could no longer regard Britain as a reliable ally”. Donald Trump? Elected President? F***face von Clownstick in the White House? Get out of here.
What is worse, he pretends that the Tories would by 2020 have elected Bozza as their leader, which is equally implausible, as are the apocalyptic visions of hyperinflation, strikes by law enforcement authorities, food shortages, and of course censorship. But what is all too plausible is that not even the Mail’s reader base will be swayed by this drivel.
So it’s hardly worth running it in the first place. Except for David Thomas’ payday.
Marvellous stuff.
ReplyDeleteMcCarthy lives.
This is worth keeping as evidence similar to the Hurrah For The Blackshirts! millstone.
The Daily and Sunday Heil are now so far up themselves they're scratching their ears.
Strange. Did Dominic Sandbrook want too much to write it?
ReplyDeleteAnd not to be outdone Tony Parsons,who used to hate Thatcher in the 80s, when he was writing.g in the Daily Mirror, has written a similar piece in the Sunday Sun. Of course, he's Murdoch's poodle nowadays. Wonderful though, the right wing ARNT laughing at Corbin, there genuinely frightened of him, so he MUST be worth voting for.
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised they didn't get the Bard of Vero Beach to write it - these flights of fantasy would have been right up his alley.
ReplyDeleteAh, Tony Parsehole - "Send them all back but don't call me a racist because I'm married to a wonderfully hardworking Chinese woman. My dad was in a war once but he didn't like to talk about it. Wonderful thing, war - teaches boys how to be men. Bring back boxing. Did I mention my dad? I met the Sex Pistols once. They were a proper band who did tunes you could whistle. Modern music's all rubbish. Anyway, my dad and his war - he killed Germans. I don't like Germans. That enough for this week? Where's my cheque?"
ReplyDeleteWell of course as Corbyn won't be Prime Minister in the first place.
ReplyDeleteQuite. The Mail has never backed Labour - not even in 1997 when it and the Telegraph alone stood behind Major's beleaguered party. So are they saying that their message will change, in the event of a Corbyn leadership victory, from "Don't vote Labour" to "REALLY don't vote Labour"?
ReplyDeleteAS Arnold mentioned I'm sure I've seen Sandbrook write this article several times. I also wrote something similar as a school essay predicting martial law due to hyper-inflation and rabies.
ReplyDelete