After the latest tabloid assault on Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, from which he has survived with his party’s popularity ratings more or less unscathed, our free and fearless press has moved its campaign to trash Jezza no further forward.
The media establishment could, but will not, understand why Jezza remains popular, and that running guilt-by-association scare stories, and jumping up and down to the point of wetting themselves over his occasional stumble over an interviewer’s questioning, will not serve this process well, if at all. But they aren’t for understanding.
Worse, those within it that usually get many complex political issues find it just as hard as the fingers-in-ears-I-can’t-hear-you brigade. Take the usually assured and sensible Ian Dunt, who has dismissed Jezza with “It's been years now and we've not heard any original or incisive political thoughts from Corbyn. He's so very boring”. He’d have hated Attlee.
After Corbyn failed to answer a question to the satisfaction of The New European - a publication that has taken its eye off the Brexit ball in order to kick Labour - James O’Brien, one of few LBC hosts to be consistently sensible, sneered “I take it all back. He’s a veritable master of the straight answer. Utterly unlike all those other politicians. Amazed he exposes himself to proper questions so rarely. Clearly committed to fulfilling the membership’s desire to stop Brexit. This could hardly have gone better”.
And those responses are as nothing when put alongside the screaming and baying denunciations of papers like the Mail and Sun. But Jezza must be doing something right, as Jim Pickard has hinted when he tells “Buried in the Electoral Commission figures is fact that Tory party's income from membership has slumped from £1.46m to £835,000 in a year, for some reason.....compares to Labour getting £16m from membership subscriptions, up from £14m the previous year”. Labour is popular. Now ask why.
John Shafthauer can tell them. “for the media types who still don't get the Corbyn 'cult': - He talks about issues that actually affect people who support him (austerity, housing, etc) - Other politicians largely don't - You don't think these issues are important because they don't affect you”. The Buses problem again - “We in the media don’t use buses, so they aren’t important”. Except IT’S NOT ABOUT YOU IN THE MEDIA BUBBLE.
He went on “You never see any serious discussion about why people support him because it would look incredibly bad on all the people who largely stood on the sidelines while austerity fucked everyone over”. But it didn’t affect most of the media establishment, so there they are believing that it therefore doesn’t exist. There was more.
“Because of austerity cuts to disability funding, we homeschool our son. I don't really believe the other parties of centrists rivals within Labour would undo that. Millions of people across the country have similar stories, & all of them are ignored or deemed ‘cultists’”. Quite. But they aren’t cultists. And it’s not a cult.
Labour is a massively popular party. That is down to Corbyn’s leadership, his message, his policies, his understanding of voters’ concerns, and thus his leadership.
This is not a challenging concept to grasp. But too many in the media refuse to do so.
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The cult line is clearly the new angle the MSM, govt and Blairites are pursuing. The way its been taken up, almost as if they are brainwashed into reporting it thus, is ironic.
ReplyDeleteEqually ironic is the fact that the odious Ed Balls (did I miss the vote that got him national treasure status?) actually said in his oft-shown trails for his ridiculous Travels in Trumpland jolly that it was 'dangerous to believe your voters are wrong' yet isn't that exactly what his ilk are doing within the Labour party?
JK Rowling, the equally odious twitter bully, has tweeted #makejeremeygreatagain too in a sneering rebuke of one poor woman who misspoke about Jeremy being a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize as further indication to them that Corbyn supporters are brainwashed cult worshippers
It still worries me immensely that Labour is only level in recent polls against the most inept government I can remember in my 60-years on this planet. Labour should have a 20-point lead in the polls.
ReplyDeleteI've worked in promotions and publicity for most of my life and the one thing you must always note is the changing of people's perceptions and tastes. But these days it is so rapid that I'm amazed that much of the UK's media seem to be lagging behind. For the first time (they used to be on the ball)-and it's glaringly obvious except to those who are so enmeshed within the current media bubble (yes you James O'Brien).
ReplyDeleteJournalists can actually be unbelievably naive but today even more so.
I always thought that the times would actually catch-up with Corbyn as his message has always been simple and to the point and (ask any marketing expert) it resonates. It's almost a perfect example of Madison Avenue marketing in its simple brilliance ( is this deliberate? Not sure). It works for that reason with millions of Brits and it could well be enough to push Labour over the line. I'm amazed the Tories/Blairites don't actually research or they would see how popular the message is.
The alternative: the Tories' track record is tragic beyond belief. The New Labour/Blairites are actually the ones wedded to a past that has rapidly passed them by. If they had their way and took control- Labour would split in a far worse way than if they formed their so-called new 'middle' party.
It's time for an anti-hero, the bloke next door who will lend you his lawnmower. I'm just amazed the media are so blinkered and cannot see it.
It's not that he didn't answer the question "to the satisfaction of The New European". He just didn't answer the question. He answered a completely different question - which nobody had asked.
ReplyDeleteLook, I like and support Corbyn but lets not call a spade a manual excavation implement. It annoys me when the rest pull stunts like this, and it annoys me even more when he does - because he's supposed to be better.
Altfish, I think the trouble is that there are some sheep like people who still believe the crap Murdoch spouts for the interests of the status quo
ReplyDeleteSam Best, unfortunately journalists these days seem to think they're a breed apart and that nothing can touch them in their little media bubble. They've cut themselves off from the real world they allegedly report upon, content in the middle class, one more good news item and I might get on Strictly attitude. Dennis Skinner memorably took one BBC hack apart about this arguing that they should stop reporting on austerity like its a thing that effects other people because it impacts on everyone's lives, but they just don't see it. They've bought a ticket for the Titanic like all the rest of us, but there's has a nice view so...
During the North American revolution British general Burgoyne was supposedly asked what history would say. His supposed reply was something like, "History will lie, as usual."
ReplyDeleteThese days most people would say it is media who lie as a matter of course. Which is why "journalist" and "presenters" are so heartily despised. Almost all of it is so bad and obvious it is laughable.
The guilty propagandists still haven't twigged that their every absurd, hysterical attack on Corbyn only increases his support. Which is fine by me.
Next time someone introduces him/her self as a "journalist" just laugh him/her to scorn until they flee the scene. God knows they've got it coming.