Say what you will about it, but Jeremy Corbyn’s election as leader of the Labour Party represents an eruption of hope amid a wasteland of gloom and despair.
“Democracy is a process by which the people are free to choose the man who will get the blame,” said Laurence J Peter, the renowned Canadian management guru who gave the world the Peter Principle: “In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to the level of their incompetence...”
The election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader is my most inspiring political experience since 120 women were voted into parliament in 1997. I did not vote in this election, nor have I voted since 1997, because, like so many others, I have grown to despise the pantomime politics of Westminster.
No, it is not a movement. It is not the new politics. The 250,000 people who voted for Jeremy Corbyn are the same half of one per cent of the adult population who have always supported the hard left. If they were a separate party, that would be the limit of their vote in elections. That quarter of a million is the maximum number of people who agree with Corbyn and who are prepared to pay £3 to say so.
The dangers for Labour that arise from Jeremy Corbyn’s overwhelming victory are obvious. There is no need to predict what they are. They are taking shape already. The onslaught of the right-wing newspapers has started and is as nothing compared with what is to come. More fundamentally the divisions within the parliamentary party over some policies are immediately visible.
The Tories have had the best summer ever. First they won a surprise majority. Then their opponents became embroiled in a leadership contest so ludicrous that it preoccupied the media and left them to get on having a proper post-election holiday. When I phoned David Cameron’s MPs for chats during recess, they answered from boats and beaches. Labour MPs answered from the depths of despair.
Barely seconds after Jeremy Corbyn was officially announced as the new Labour leader, Nicola Sturgeon’s obviously pre-written reaction to the result dropped into journalists’ email inboxes.
Just before the summer break I was invited to speak at a London comprehensive school in a mixed catchment area. Year on year, GCSE and A level exam results are getting better, but the headteacher is worried that most of her pupils are unaware of the challenges facing them in a fast-changing, competitive world. Young people from China, India, Nigeria and elsewhere are more motivated and determined to succeed.
It’s clear where Roy “Chubby” Brown stands on the subject of refugee economics. “I am asylum seeker, we love all your benefits/You give us a house, car, money, NHS, and a glimpse of Jordan’s tits” the obscene comedian bellows in one of his charming ditties.
Accuracy is the No 1 requirement of good journalism. And that is never more true than when it comes to reporting on matters of medical science.
The most significant statistic in Labour’s leadership election was not Jeremy Corbyn’s 59.5 per cent share of the vote but Liz Kendall’s derisory 4.5 per cent. It marks the final nail in the coffin of Blairism. The Labour critics of Tony Blair, who have been trying to bury him for years, have succeeded.
A stone’s throw from the entrance to London’s Victoria Station, a small man in an ill-fitting tweed suit, mangled tie, scuffed shoes and cloth cap with an upturned peak threads his way through commuters towards a statue of the French First World War commander, Marshal Ferdinand Foch. A homeless man sleeps at the base of the plinth; confused Chinese tourists pause in its shadow, poring over their guidebooks; taxis and buses hurtle past.
Only four months ago, David Cameron was on the crest of a wave. He had just guided his party to their first parliamentary majority of this century, and his opposite numbers from across the dispatch box were falling over themselves to leave office. Granted, Labour is still in turmoil. In-fighting continues to damage the party’s attempts to restore its reputation, but Cameron is no longer surfing the waves of electoral success, or even the one-footers of Cornwall on his summer holidays.
Alexander Carter-Silk is a senior barrister at a top city firm; if you’d googled him a week ago, that’s pretty much all you would have found out, although you may have come across some arcane articles on intellectual property law, or a few corporate headshots. But nothing to excite any interest. If you google Carter-Silk now however, corporate platitudes have been replaced with emotive slogans, and talk of “sexism”, “misogyny” and “feminazis”.
Saving the best till last, the Proms gave us two brilliant nights with the Vienna Philharmonic, first under Semyon Bychkov’s inspired and meticulous direction with symphonies by Brahms and Franz Schmidt, then under Simon Rattle’s direction with Elgar’s Gerontius.
Mo Farah's superb recent form continued on Sunday as he successfully defended his Great North Run title.
Another referendum on Scottish independence may well be likely in the long term, but probably not in the lifetime of the current Westminster Parliament, provided that the UK votes to remain within the European Union in 2017.
The article by Joan Smith about David Cameron’s attitude to the refugee crisis is oversimplistic (“Cameron’s idea of ‘British’ values is looking pretty hollow”, 6 September). Mr Cameron cannot jump and respond to headlines and heart-wrenching pictures of dead children – if he did we would have a rollercoaster government, jumping from one issue to another.
What a difference a year makes
Well there we have it. Jeremy Corbyn has defied all expectations, rising from rank outsider to become leader of the Labour Party. The next five years of British politics will be very interesting indeed. Any Labour MP leading the party would have a difficult task ahead; bringing the party back from electoral wipeout in Scotland and boundary changes in England to gain a 10 point upswing and win in 2020. But let’s put aside the challenges for today, and focus on the positives.
'Newsnight' report on deaths in Yemen leads to bias claim and 'rude and patronising' interview
James Anthony was desperate to take ballet classes at his mother’s dance school in Wales, but put his dream on hold because he was frightened of being bullied at school.
This is not about mere differences in political opinion. No-one likes it when their candidate loses, just as others do not when their football team does. But today is about much, much more than that.
I have a friend whose nervy cat takes Valium. I have a cousin whose itchy labrador is on a set of steroids as complex and finely tuned as a Mayfair cocktail, and at least five times more expensive. And I have an elderly moggy who seems fine, but a vet who asks, "Shall we take a sample of his urine? Just to see?"
