The “Corbyn consulted with Commie spy” story has run across pretty much every newspaper you would consider right of centre in Great Britain now. It is clearly part of a concerted effort to change people’s minds about the Labour leader. If they can’t get to the young lefties who would never read The Daily Mail in a million years, at least they might change a few minds within the 30-45 year old range of people who probably represent the current swing vote. Property owning, Remainer types whom the custodians of papers like The Sun hope could be suitably repelled by the idea that Jeremy Corbyn might have had a pint or two with people who meant this country no damn good. Only, they tried this already, during the 2017 general election campaign – and it spectacularly failed.
It won’t work now either. The problem with trying to build up Corbyn into a monster who means the country genuine harm is, this is directly counter-intuitive to how he comes across to most people. He seems like a harmless, well meaning bloke to the vast majority of voters who pay little attention to politics in the UK between elections. This is reflected in the questions that the Czech spy story instantly raises: just how much useful information could Jeremy Corbyn have been privy to in the 1980s? A Labour backbencher in a time of terminal opposition for the party, a backbencher who was not well loved or trusted by the leadership of the party at the time, no less. What could he have known at the time that could any way have been construed as potentially damaging to the country? Again, even if he was actually willing to impart this information to a foreign source, something none of the stories printed so far come close to proving.
The right of centre press has reported in the past on stuff that is verifiable and much worse than this Czech spy story, like the fact that Corbyn took upwards of £20k to appear on Iranian state TV. And still, no one really cared about that either. Again, because people see Corbyn as well meaning, but a bit useless.
Ah ha, so there we have it. If most voters the Tories are trying to target see Corbyn as nice but useless, shouldn’t they just go with the flow and pump out stories about Corbyn’s gormlessness instead? Problem is, they can’t do that. At least, not at present. This is because attacking the hopelessness of the opposition while the government is saying things like “Brexit won’t lead to a Mad Max style apocalypse” and pumping out higher education policies that literally no one in the world doesn’t think are wretched isn’t a good look. In other words, they cannot attack Corbyn on the competence question until a Tory government looks at least half-competent again.
This very well might happen. It is difficult to see the Conservative Party getting in a worse leader than Theresa May (difficult, but not impossible, I hasten to add). If a Tory leader who doesn’t sound like they are about to fall to pieces every time they speak in public appears, the right-wing press will go after Corbyn’s lack of ability to be anything other than the worst opposition leader ever. Until then, we will have to suffer some more “reds under the bed” crap. Ah, the joys of 2018.
I disagree. The reason that it didn’t have much impact on the 2017 election was that people simply didn’t see Corbyn as a credible Prime minister, so they didn’t really care whether he had the best interests of Britain at heart. Same reason he was given an easy ride when it came to policies and interviews etc.So a vote for Labour seemed like a safe protest vote.
Thanks to him not losing that election as badly as expected, he’s going to go into the next election under much closer scrutiny. In that case, things like whether he’s actually on our side when it comes to foreign policy (spoiler: he isn’t) become much more salient.
If the Tories are smart, they will spend between now and then getting out as many things as possible that will annoy Corbyn when he inevitably has to deny them in interviews during the campaign. Because Corbyn can be relied upon to do one thing when questioned hard: he will lose his temper. Remember when he hung up on Stephen Nolan? That wasn’t a one-off, that was totally in character. He simply doesn’t see why he should have to defend his past actions which were all, in his view, perfectly justified.
The dream scenario for the Tories is Corbyn on Newsnight during the short campaign being asked about his contacts with the IRA, with Hamas, with the USSR, and eventually getting so cross that he stands up, tears off his microphone and huffs out of the studio. That is not a good look for someone who is asking voters to trust him with the country, it’s easy to imagine, and if the Conservative press office is smart they can make it pretty much inevitable.
I tend to agree. I recall whn Kinnock was their Leader and he lost his rag with someone who tapped him on the shoulder and and said something like “Alright Neil.”
I hated the idea of someone who could lose their temper so easily being in charge of nuclear weapons.
As it happens I do not recollect it featuring much in the campaign but if I thought it then others must have as well because I know I am ot unique!
Nick,
M makes some good counter-arguments. But I cannot see how it is possible, in all good conscience, to shrug off alleged dealings by British politicians with Eastern Bloc diplomats-cum-spies, Czechoslovak or otherwise, in the 1980s, as just ‘one of those things’ that happened decades ago in the Cold War. It’s just not good enough. I suggest watching the 2009 BBC documentary, “The Lost World of Communism”, (you’ll find it on Youtube). The second edition on Czechoslovakia is both politically instructive and genuinely heart-breaking). Ernie Bevin must be turning in his grave.
Having read Edward Lucas’s excoriating column in today’s “Times” (23.02.18, p.27), it makes my comments here look far too kind in comparison.
… and it’s already working, having provoked Corbyn into making a bizarre video rant in which he threatens censorship of the press because they printed stories about him that he doesn’t like.
And the key thing is that none of the Twitter Corbynistas, nor those who can actually talk to him, will have a clue how this plays with those beyond their bubble. They’re managed to create a sub-world in which it goes without saying that all newspapers and all TV are biased against them, so establishing a Glavlit office in Fleet streets seems perfectly reasonable. And when he walks off Newsnight in the middle of an interview, they’ll claim this shows how biased the BBC is against them — while everyone else in the country makes a mental note note to vote for the swivel-eyed loons of the left.
If the Tories are clever, this is the long game they are playing: Corbyn looked less frightening to the country last time because he managed to reign in his extreme and anti-British instincts and appear, yes, ‘like a harmless, well meaning bloke’. But, the extremism and the anti-Britishness are where he’s most comfortable, and because of his position under siege in the leadership he’s surrounded himself only by people who are as extreme as him or even more, so there is no one there to be the voice of sanity, to say, ‘Hey, maybe you shouldn’t get out Mao’s Little Red Book in the chamber, do you think there’s a chance that might backfire?’
So all they need to do is just keep prodding, just a little, and giving him enough rope to hang himself. Before long he’s going to be proposing land seizures of all second homes and re-education camps while Corbyn Twitter shrieks about how this is a perfectly reasonable policy.
Dear me, so many errors. Most important: ‘make a mental note never to vote for’.
The rest can be figured out I think.