Labour Party member David Goodhart has taken a look at the impact and meaning underlying Corbyn’s leadership win. Just the other day I heard a Labour MP state that Corbyn won because he essentially had the backing of London intellectuals and Goodhart seems to take a similar perspective and that Corbyn’s win does not reflect a leftward trend in the country…a trend that the BBC keeps insisting is happening for some reason despite the Tory majority!?
When reading Goodhart’s analysis you can’t help thinking he could also be talking about the BBC which is similarly detached from the majority of the population and run by a left-wing intellectual ‘elite’ [so called] or if you prefer ‘semi-alien lefty liberals’. Reading the article and you have to note that the BBC is by default in his firing-line and that many of the narratives that they promote are just wrong….such as the population is moving to the left intellectually or that politics is in a crisis.
Here’s a taste of what he says:
There is no evidence that his election represents any significant shift in political opinion—a British version of Syriza in Greece or Podemos in Spain is not emerging.
His worldview is a rare mix of economic statism and radical egalitarianism and a rather extreme version of the metropolitan liberalism that is generally hostile to tradition and suspicious of national borders. These views are shared by a tiny proportion of the voting public. (My own former accountant Richard Murphy is one of them: the tax/economics adviser to Corbyn is a middle class radical in a conservative profession who liked to represent artists and writers.)
And the young people who are flocking to the Corbyn banner seem to be mainly middle class, university educated idealists. They are not representative of British young people in general who are increasingly liberal on race, gender and sexuality but, if anything, shifting to the right on welfare issues and economics.
In any case, Corbyn leads the Labour Party not as a result of any leftward shift in public opinion but because of a quirk of internal Labour politics at the end of the Blair/Brown era and the utterly uninspiring alternatives.
Normal service will presumably be restored at some point though given the magnitude of his victory it is hard to see when. A semi-alien group of leftists now sit astride the party and will be able to direct its day-to-day positions in parliament and in responding to events but they will have to live with much of the policy inheritance from more centrist times.
[Corbyn’s] election is a symptom of the withering of mainstream social democracy experienced across all rich countries.
This decline has been well documented and has essentially three causes. First—and most visible—the changing class and industrial structure has largely eliminated the old industrial working class. Second, as touched on earlier, centre left parties have become increasingly divided between low income voters who often have quite traditional views on cultural matters and the increasingly dominant liberal middle class (public sector professionals and Guardian readers in the newspaper shorthand) who occupy the other end of the values spectrum on many of the biggest issues of the day such as immigration, welfare, Europe, family. This divided base is one of the reasons why so few Labour politicians have been able to speak with any conviction in recent years. Corbyn has not resolved the conflict he simply ignores it.
Third, and least discussed, is the notion that social democracy has been a victim of its own success. Social democratic ideas have become completely mainstream and, indeed, many have been adopted by the Conservative party.
Ideas associated with the centre left will remain an important current in British public life even without Labour to implement them—consider the recent Conservative plans for a living wage and an apprenticeship levy on big companies. Centre left ideas are also institutionally entrenched in British society in much of the public sector, in the education system, in parts of the media[No kidding].
The idea that without Labour as a contender for office to defend social democracy the malevolent Tories will grind the faces of the poor is just the sort of blinkered, tribal, self-regarding assumption that lost Labour the last general election and elected Jeremy Corbyn.
One of the cliches of British political life in recent years is that it is in crisis due to low levels of participation.
It is true political parties have far fewer members and election turnout has been falling, though there seems to be a turnout floor of around 65 per cent. But British political culture is in rude health: consider the rise in recent years of the SNP and Ukip, the evolution of the Tory Party, the rise of mayors, a noisy and opinionated media.
>A semi-alien group of leftists now sit astride the party and will be able to direct its day-to-day positions in parliament and in responding to events but they will have to live with much of the policy inheritance from more centrist times.<
Not sure about the semi-alien monicher, but even so, directing day to day positions is not all that these people will be doing.
They are inside the party now, and ideally placed to change party rules and embed their culture and ethos inside the party. They have never been in this position before, at least not in the same way, and will not miss their opportunity.
The question is, where will the so-called soft or centre-left go? With the demise of the LibDems and the passing of Labour, there seems only one option, if they are to remain in politics at all.
An interesting comment column in the DT the other day about the Tories moving left with such as the living wage towards the centre ground. Carefully targetted policies such as that may not alienate the right in the party, while tempting the Blairite voters. The council estates may decide that UKIP is the way forward as the Labour Party would appear to about to embark on a period of “heavy”politics which turns off many people.
If the unions kick off talk of the wonderful 70s will bring memories flooding back!
As others have said the BBC and Guardian are now between a rock and a hard place in deciding how to play the JC led Labour Party.
Hopefully JC will have the decency to say to his M.P.s that they are to speak and vote according to their conscience without worrying about the official party line or being deselected.
Sorry I’ve gone too far with the deselected! It is the left we are talking about.
“…Third, and least discussed, is the notion that social democracy has been a victim of its own success.”
No, let’s not be mealy-mouthed about this. What has happened to the Labour Party is the direct result of twenty years of pro-marxist liberal-progressive education in our schools and universities. When young people, heads filled wall-to-wall with such relentless doctrine, are finally given the chance to act on their nascent activism they will of course vote for the ‘virtue signalling’ party; the fact that Corbyn comes from a different age, an age most Blairite centrists had hoped was long since dead and buried, is completely lost on these young people. They can’t understand what Corbyn represents beyond sloganeering in favour of ‘refugees’, ‘anti-austerity’ and ‘smash the rich!’. That’s what they voted him in for.
Corbyn’s victory is what happens when the Law of Unintended Consequences takes full effect – this time in spectacular fashion. The victory of the extreme left wing (very red in tooth and claw) is not a sign that ‘social democracy has been a victim of its own success’. No. It’s a clear sign that filling young people’s heads with vacuous socialist propaganda for the entirety of their lives can actually produce some very unexpected, but strangely logical, outcomes.
Welcome to the Tom & Jerry Show, and don’t act so surprised, Mr Goodhart; this was eventually going to happen one way or another – you and your lot facilitated your own political oblivion. Funny how that works, eh?
One challenge for Labour internally is how to embrace the registered and affiliated supporters who are not classified as full members. How many of them were Union place people, (and actually exist), and how many were Tories/ UKIP in disguise? How many actually care?
Labour could be massively deluded in terms of actual member numbers are and may not be truly aware till these people come to renew their membership. If they budget on the basis of these numbers they could be in serious trouble, although there will always be the Unions to bail them out.
The massive delusion, not altogether surprisingly, extends well within the BBC, as evidenced by the in-depth and enthusiastic assessments of Jeremy’s hand-picked lieutenants, or should that be sergeants?, from Norman and the like during the mid-day news. From what these gurus seem to suggest, anyone would think that those chosen are simply waiting to assume power – rather than have their Peter Pan shadows sewn permanently in place.
Think the Corbyn win might put the Beeboids in a dilemma. It will eventually dawn on the Guardianistas and perpetual student-lefties that Corbyn is going to hit them hard where it hurts – in their own pockets. They may get statist broadcaster rights of job security but it might come at a high price – unless Jezza decides to go all the statist way and provide a fleet of Zils to keep the new favoured state apparatchiks in the manner to which they become accustomed.
Just as in the last GE, Al Beeb’s churnalists rely heavily upon Twatter and other social media outlets for their market research, using it as a proxy for asking real people real questions. And just as with the GE, the people most active on Twatter are pig-ignorant Leftoids and Corbynutters because the Left has mobilised these semi-literate swarms/hordes/infestations to get maximum publicity. It is, after all, by packing the list with infiltrators that Len McClusterfuck and FaTWATson arranged their Corbyn putsch.
It is exceptionally lazy and undemocratic to rely so heavily on Twitter and social media. AlBeeb also post Google Street Map images rather than getting off their arses and doing a proper job. It would be rather refreshing to see Vox Pops from a broad spectrum of the electorate rather than just the few who have @BBC programmed into their phones.
And this is the David Goodhart who formerly advocated untrammelled economic migration to the UK but who, all too belatedly, saw the light and now, too late, recognises it for the drain on our resources and standards which it is.
Still, his support and that of other fellow-travellers has allowed extremists a (both feet) foothold (and vice-like grasp of our wallets and throats) in our once pleasant land.
Meanwhile, Tom Watson is all set up to take over as party leader after the forthcoming coup.
‘….My own former accountant Richard Murphy is one of them: the tax/economics adviser to Corbyn is a middle class radical in a conservative profession…’
Murphy, also an adviser to the TUC, is credited with being the inspiration behind Corbynomics. He might be a familiar name to some of you, of the hard left and frequently smuggled in to the Newsnight studio as an expert on this , that or the other.
It’s not that the BBC leans to the left (without any balance) – when you look at its regular contributors and guests, in news, current affairs, drama and comedy it is evidence that it leans to the far left.
Murphy’s idiot Leftoid views are often debunked by more savvy economists or even by other chartered accountants (such as me). Here are a couple of de-trouserings from the ASI, but there are many others –
http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/economics/to-examine-the-views-of-richard-murphy-once-again/
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/timworstall/100016746/the-self-appointed-tax-expert-richard-murphy-doesnt-understand-economics-is-about-facts-not-ideology/
Why does anyone or group that advocate high taxes have an accountant .? All they have to do is ask HMRC how much it wants and give them a cheque .