How Jeremy Corbyn will handle the whole “Britain is a constitutional monarchy” thing continues to roll on as an ongoing concern. As the leader of the opposition, Corbyn has been invited to a banquet Her Majesty is holding at Buckingham Palace; he was apparently thinking of sending someone in his place. Instead, he’s decided to attend – and use the opportunity to question Xi Jinping directly about China’s human rights record.
It’s worth exploring some of these issues briefly here. China executes the highest number of people annually by quite some margin; many non-violent crimes, such as smuggling in certain instances, are actually capital offences. Of interest to the UK in particular should be the persecution of Christians – given David Cameron likes to reminds us all that we are a “Christian nation”, sticking up for the rights of the faithful worldwide should be the least one would expect.
Thus far, Jeremy Corbyn has been a rather poor Labour leader. But as a campaigner, the man has a long and illustrious history. And if he wants to spend the rest of his time as leader of the opposition questioning dodgy governments about the terrible treatment they dish out to their own citizens, I will genuinely applaud him for that. It may even do a little good here and there. And if it does, whatever else Jeremy Corbyn may do – like embedding decades of Tory government, as a for instance – if he achieves something on this front, there will have been a definite upside to his time as leader of the Labour Party.
He could even become a sort of secret weapon on just such occasions. I can imagine him and Osborne as a sort of double act. George charms them and then Jeremy comes over to give the Saudis or the Azeris or whomever a good earful. Osborne can do a sort of “What I can say? Jeremy’s off the leash. But he does have half a point here, I must admit” thing and who knows, perhaps I’m being overly optimistic, but maybe even a life or two may be saved somewhere along the way.
Anyhow, it’s comforting to have something to cheer Corbyn on for now and again. His concern for human rights abroad is one I share. If only he could figure out that socialism is a bad idea, perhaps I could really like the guy properly.
“… socialism is a bad idea …”
But not as bad as all the other ideas?
OK, so the deficit your mate George pledged to reduce hits £1.5 trillion, its highest level ever, and parliament votes to make elimination of the deficit a legal priority. NHS is being starved of cash to a point where doctors and nurses are leaving, yet the visas for Indian nurses coming to help address the shortfall are rescinded. Teachers are leaving the profession in droves, there is inadequate access to housing for the majority of people, and the poorest in our society are being victimised for being poor.
With all that, and more, happening, is yet another supercilious opinion piece attacking Jeremy Corbyn all you have to offer?
Can’t agree with you more David Cain!!!
Apart from your continued lambasting of Mr Corbyn, and your obvious love of the Tory party, your impartiality as a “journalist” is in question here!?
Go and find your friend Cameron and ask him his failings, I think there maybe quite a few, try writing about them instead!?
It’s good that he’s not the chancellor then, isn’t it? While Corbyn might prefer socialism he respects democracy and McDonnell’s economic ideas are perfectly viable.
For instance: Tax Credits – I get what they are trying to say when they talk about taxing people and then giving the money back – but that’s not really what is going on – the system could be refined sure, but The Tories keep going on about it as if it’s the SAME people being taxed and then supported…
As for the economic “realism” of cutting tax credits, it should be painfully obvious to anybody who knows what ‘The Marginal Propensity To Consume’ is that this will slow down the economy. In fact the belated recovery we have struggled to could have been achieved by giving a bumper pay rise to public servants and a probationary boost to tax credits followed by a spending review around now (assuming this had been done at the outset). In fact we may even have been running a surplus by now!
I’m so sick of seeing people go on about how unrealistic opposing austerity is when there’s more anti-vaxx doctors floating around than there are economists who think austerity is a good idea..
I do think it’s a bit rich commenting on some ones performance after a very short period in office, where not only did Jeremy not expect to be in the position he is in now, and hurriedly scratched together policies and a cabinet that upon his election, was widely forecast that no one would serve in.
The facts are that Blair created a new party within a party and over the last twenty years has placed Neo-Liberals in power within the party that held control until Jeremy came along, not only has got to completely transform the agenda of the party, but he has to fight the very people that lost us the last two elections.
It is also myopic on a grand scale not to see the sea change in British politics since Jeremy come on the scene we have already seen Cameron publicly backtrack on policy presentation, I say presentation because nobody believes he will actually divert from the Neo-Liberal agenda, and like the cloned robot he is, will obfuscate and lie his way out of any given circumstance.
I would also alert you to the fact that like Thatcher the godmother of Neo-Liberalism, Jeremy has thrown light on the hitherto unknown fact that there is a genuine alternative to austerity and Neo-Liber alism.
Unlike the Neo-Liberals within Labour Jeremy has made clear we can spend our way out of the depression, deliberately created to asset strip our state, in fact his policies are main stream Keynesian unlike Osborne and the Neo-Liberals within Labour that are Orthodox Classic economists that brought the 1929 Wall street crash upon us.
Yes, Jeremy has erupted like a volcano into British politics, and only because of his gentle disposition he is not recognised due to the aggressive media counter attack, which is also falling on deaf ears, because Jeremy’s policies resonate with the public, that see their standard of living being eroded week on week, as opposed to a term of office.
When you compare the birth of Neo-Liberalism from the 1970s onwards to the period after the war when Labour set the new consensus, we can see growth rates averaging 3% up to 1970, Since Thatcher came to power and under a clear neo-Liberal agenda we have seen growth fall from 1.5% average down to the last figure of 0.3%, I therefore conclude, socialism works and capitalism doesn’t, I am sure you won’t agree, but there are many out there today that may not realise it, but are feeling the brunt of it.