The BBC and corporate media coalesce around an extremely narrow consensus of political thought, and ensure that anybody who steps outside that consensus is ridiculed and marginalised. That consensus has got narrower and narrower. I was delighted during the general election to be able to listen to Nicola Sturgeon during the leaders’ debate argue for anti-austerity policies and for the scrapping of Trident. I had not heard anyone on broadcast media argue for the scrapping of Trident for a decade – it is one of those views which though widely held the establishment gatekeepers do not view as respectable.
The media are working overtime to marginalise Jeremy Corbyn as a Labour leadership candidate on the grounds that he is left wing and therefore weird and unelectable. But they face the undeniable fact that, Scottish independence aside, there are very few political differences between Jeremy Corbyn and Nicola Sturgeon. On issues including austerity, nuclear weapons, welfare and Palestine both Sturgeon and Corbyn are really very similar. They have huge areas of agreement that stand equally outside the establishment consensus. Indeed Nicola is more radical than Jeremy, who wants to keep the United Kingdom.
The establishment’s great difficulty is this. Given that the SNP had just slaughtered the Labour Party – and the Tories and Lib Dems – by being a genuine left wing alternative, how can the media consensus continue to insist that the left are unelectable? The answer is of course that they claim Scotland is different. Yet precisely the same establishment consensus denies that Scotland has a separate political culture when it comes to the independence debate. So which is it? They cannot have it both ways.
If Scotland is an integral part of the UK, Jeremy Corbyn’s policies cannot be unelectable.
Nicola Sturgeon won the UK wide leaders debate in the whole of the United Kingdom, despite the disadvantage of representing a party not standing in 90% of it by population. She won not just because she is clever and genuine, but because people all across the UK liked the left wing policies she articulated.
A Daily Mirror opinion poll following a BBC televised Labour leadership candidates’ debate this week had Jeremy Corbyn as the clear winner, with twice the support of anyone else. The media ridicule level has picked up since. This policy of marginalisation works. I was saddened by readers’ comments under a Guardian report of that debate, in which Labour supporter after Labour supporter posted comment to the effect “I would like to vote for Jeremy Corbyn because he believes in the same things I do, but we need a more right wing leader to have a chance of winning.”
There are two answers to that. The first is no, you don’t need to be right wing to win. Look at the SNP. The second is what the bloody hell are you in politics for anyway? Do you just want your team to win like it was football? Is there any point at all in being elected just so you can carry out the same policies as your opponents? The problem is, of course, that for so many in the Labour Party, especially but not just the MPs, they want to win for personal career advantage not actually to promote particular policies.
The media message of the need to be right wing to be elected is based on reinforced by a mythologizing of Tony Blair and Michael Foot as the ultimate example of the Good and Bad leader. These figures are constantly used to reinforce the consensus. Let us examine their myths.
Tony Blair is mythologised as an electoral superstar, a celebrity politician who achieved unprecedented personal popularity with the public, and that he achieved this by adopting right wing policies. Let us examine the truth of this myth. First that public popularity. The best measure of public enthusiasm is the percentage of those entitled to vote, who cast their ballot for that party at the general election. This table may surprise you.
Percentage of Eligible Voters
1992 John Major 32.5%
1997 Tony Blair 30.8%
2001 Tony Blair 24.1%
2005 Tony Blair 21.6%
2010 David Cameron 23.5%
2015 David Cameron 24.4%
There was only any public enthusiasm for Blair in 97 – and to put that in perspective, it was less than the public enthusiasm for John Major in 1992.
More importantly, this public enthusiasm was not based on the policies now known as Blairite. The 1997 Labour Manifesto was not full of right wing policies and did not indicate what Blair was going to do.
The Labour Party manifesto of 1997 did not mention Academy schools, Private Finance Initiative, Tuition Fees, NHS privatisation, financial sector deregulation or any of the right wing policies Blair was to usher in. Labour actually presented quite a left wing image, and figures like Robin Cook and Clare Short were prominent in the campaign. There was certainly no mention of military invasions.
It was only once Labour were in power that Blair shaped his cabinet and his policies on an ineluctably right wing course and Mandelson started to become dominant. As people discovered that New Labour were “intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich”, to quote Mandelson, their popular support plummeted. “The great communicator” Blair for 90% of his Prime Ministership was no more popular than David Cameron is now. 79% of the electorate did not vote for him by his third election
Michael Foot consistently led Margaret Thatcher in opinion polls – by a wide margin – until the Falklands War. He was defeated in a victory election by the most appalling and intensive wave of popular war jingoism and militarism, the nostalgia of a fast declining power for its imperial past, an emotional outburst of popular relief that Britain could still notch up a military victory over foreigners in its colonies. It was the most unedifying political climate imaginable. The tabloid demonization of Foot as the antithesis of the military and imperial theme was the first real exhibition of the power of Rupert Murdoch. Few serious commentators at the time doubted that Thatcher might have been defeated were it not for the Falklands War – which in part explains her lack of interest in a peaceful solution. Michael Foot’s position in the demonology ignores these facts.
The facts about Blair and about Foot are very different from the media mythology.
The stupid stunt by Tories of signing up to the Labour Party to vote for Corbyn to ridicule him, is exactly the kind of device the establishment consensus uses to marginalise those whose views they fear. Sturgeon is living proof left wing views are electable. The “left unelectable” meme will intensify. I expect Jeremy Corbyn’s biggest problem will be quiet exclusion. I wish him well.
Habbabkuk, remember that we all are ‘peasants’ now. Some more than others.
*************
“Speaking of immigration, one wonders how the Scotch nats feel about the rapid displacement of Scots by immigrants in their great cities of Glasgow and Edinburgh?” Alfred
Good Lord! Whom did I kick out? Sean Connery?
Canspeccy, so your answer is “yes”, is it? You advocate that humans should be classified by groups, and only be permitted to breed within those groups. Is that right?
@ Habby
CanSpeccy
Toronto????? Have you ever been to Vancouver?
Not recently, thank God.
But why? What’s up there now?
@ Clark:
Canspeccy, so your answer is “yes”, is it? You advocate that humans should be classified by groups, and only be permitted to breed within those groups. Is that right?
Don’t be such a twit Clark. I advocate democracy. Seventy percent plus of the British people, including most immigrants, are opposed to mass immigration and think the rate of immigration should be sharply curtailed or reduced to zero.
As for who breeds with who, that’s a matter for the law as determined by a democratic government.
Continually, you attempt to insinuate that I am some kind of anti-diluvian south African racist for apartheid. But that’s an idiotic premise since I live in a melting-pot multi-racial society, as a matter of choice. But a multi-racial melting pot society is not a matter of choice to the majority of the British people. Moreover,
There is more ‘human biodiversity’ (genetically-speaking) within Africa than there is in the whole of the rest of the world put together. A Scot and a Korean have more in common genetically than a Congolese and a South African.
Not only is the whole premise of the argument daft, it carries no weight in history or pre-history. We’re all mixed-up and we all are really similar. ‘Europe’ has existed for the blink of an eye.
It’s one thing to talk of transational capitalism using cheap labour from abroad. Think of the poor guys and gals who slave – literally, slave – away in the Middle East, building football stadia in Qatar, for instance and dying in their hundreds due to zero health and safety. It’s quite another to talk of ‘race’ in these economic contexts. There of course are cultural issues too. Again that is a different matter.
But we’ve been through all this before. It’s Alfred’s ‘thing’; this potentially would be an interesting case study: The immigrant who condemns immigrants. It’s something of a chestnut. It’ll run round every thread, if it’s set rolling. He’s entitled to his opinion. We disagree fundamentally. And that’s that.
Canspeccy, what does your term “melting pot” actually mean, in terms of actual behaviour of actual people? Why is the term appropriate?
“If indeed – as you say – Corbyn does not become leader and the Labour Party in 2020 is a mere right-lite imitation of the Conservatives, then would this not provide a golden opportunity for “Left Unity” or something similar to sweep into power?”
__________________________________
Interesting point Habb,that may well eventually be proven,afterall history does have a habit of repeating itself.
Callaghan fell to Thatcher,who ruled with a iron fist,from 1979 to 1990, then John Major,the people tired of right wing rule and a landslide win for Labour ensued.
It may well be similar Brown/Labour,then Cameron Tories, Tories for the next ten years then Labour again,and so on.
The only significant difference is that Labour are no longer a party of the left.
Oops! to coninue,
Moreover, I am delighted that the Brits wish to continue being Brits, and not, say Bangladeshis, although that is what it appears that are about to become.
The Bangladeshi kids who greeted Ms. Obama in the company of a token European person (the school principal, I assume), are very attractive children, incidentally. But the are NOT ENGLISH!
But I have to put you down Clark as being for the genocide of the English and the English cultural tradition, which is Christian not Islamic.
@ SS for the genocide of the European peoples
But we’ve been through all this before. It’s Alfred’s ‘thing’; this potentially would be an interesting case study: The immigrant who condemns immigrants.
Of course I don’t condemn immigrants. To suggest that I do is a stupid and continually repeated lie. Legal immigrants are entitled to all rights accorded by law.
CanSpeccy, 7:34 pm:
Those bloody liberals have created a catastrophe! White people turning brown as they walk down the street! Outrage!
@ Clark
Canspeccy, what does your term “melting pot” actually mean, in terms of actual behaviour of actual people? Why is the term appropriate?
It’s not my term, for God’s sake. It’s a common American expression. Can’t you use a dictionary:
Merriam Webster:
Melting pot: (b) a place where a variety of races, cultures, or individuals assimilate into a cohesive whole.
Canspeccy
“the product of separate evolutionary and cultural development”
Evolutionary? Too funny. And idiotic obviously.
@Johnstone – I was responding to this (as you were), rather than any “overoptimism” of your own:
What most of the posters do not understand that there is a huge left movement here in Scotland that will act as a counterbalance if the SNP falter and appear to change course…
I was suggesting that that counterbalance would disappear if the SNP didn’t live up to expectations, hence that the statement was overoptimistic. It’s possible I misread his intention here. I took it that he meant the Scottish Left would correct a drift to the right. Possibly he meant that the Scottish Left would return to Nu Labour in such an event, but that seemed less likely.
Generally speaking I do read the posts I respond to. And even try to understand them, but ambiguities do arise – sorry if this was one.
“Speaking of immigration, one wonders how the Scotch nats feel about the rapid displacement of Scots by immigrants in their great cities of Glasgow and Edinburgh?” Alfred
Good Lord! Whom did I kick out? Sean Connery?”
________________________
What a load bollocks,if the above comment was meant to be satire, then I’ve missed it,if it’s mean’t to be factual,it isn’t.
The ethnic population of Scotland at the 2011 census was 4% or just over 200,000 people.
http://www.gov.scot/Topics/People/Equality/Equalities/DataGrid/Ethnicity/EthPopMig
Of course unlike Westminster,Holyrood isn’t driving around in vans with signage telling immigrants to go home.
Nor are they sending people like Majid Ali home to almost certain death in Balochstan.
Today I have been hearing nothing but support for Westminster’s decision to end the subsidy for onshore wind farms. Even people who are pro SNP and pro green energy have been saying enough was enough for some time now.
The consensus in these parts seems to be that Westminster got it right.
Certainly Lord Howell, Osborne’s dad, fracking champion (“in the desolate Northeast”) thinks so. Howell recently handed over to Charles Hendry, here –
http://www.biee.org/charles-hendry-new-biee-president/
Safe pair of hands. Done wonders in Azerbaijan (with Tony). Wonder what he’s proposing by way of new industry for Caithness? NB, you should be safe enough as far as the oil geology goes onshore, for the moment.
My 17th century spirit guide tells me that in his day you couldn’t move in England for windmills and watermills. Blots on the landscape, he says. Isn’t a quern good enough for the peasants? he says. Frankly I could care less about onshore wind now offshore technology has developed, but I sense a lot of whipping-up of opinion has been going on. Those turbines on the bleakest moor I have ever seen, in Caithness, Thurso area, quite enhanced the view IMO. Norfolk ones ditto.
Canspeccy, so what you’re saying is that it’s important to keep differing populations from interbreeding, but we won’t need laws to specifically criminalise interbreeding so long as governments agree to keep people mostly corralled where they already are.
On this basis I don’t see why you campaign to oppose immigration. It would make more sense if governments didn’t let their subjects leave in the first place.
Republic of Scotland, exactly. It almost certainly was not meant as satire by Alfred (Can Speccy). he really believes Glasgow and Edinburgh are being “swamped” by ‘aliens’ like me. Of course it’s nonsense. And so, since I live in Glasgow, I am asking Alfred, whom exactly did I kick out? Sean Connery???
This is not really what this thread was about, though, remember.
Ah Suhayl, I sincerely hope you are not spending the evening miscegenating especially as I met your lovely family!
The monarchy is the gilded apex that justifies wealth disparity. NATO is the war machine. These are red lines for the establishment. Do you think it entirely coincidental the SNP’s landslide occurred after they drew back from rejecting these fundamental pillars of our plutocracy?
But that isn’t true. Their first landslide, in 2011, occured while they were anti-NATO. That they repeated the feat four years later is therefore unlikely to be a result of that policy change.
My guess is that the U-turn wasn’t about directly winning votes – few people would have known what the SNP’s policy on NATO was before they changed it, and even fewer would have cared. It was more likely an attempt to appease the United States, and to give them as little reason as possible to become involved in the referendum. I’d say it worked on that score, as all we got were a few embarrassed-sounding mumbles from Obama about how it would be a bit of a shame for such a loyal servant of the US to be broken up.
Ha!! Craig, thanks. And no, there definitely is no misceg-wotsit going on ; my evening is much less interesting!
Craig, good to see you back. I’ve been “watching this space” – or rather the Assange post – with much suspense. So what happened?…
Keaton
“Their first landslide, in 2011, occured while they were anti-NATO.”
Fair enough. Of course it makes no difference to my argument. Nor whatever reason you come up with for the change of heart. They are still pro-NATO and therefore hard to describe as “a genuine left wing alternative”. Maybe you can reconcile the two. Which is exactly the problem.
What’s that? No miscet-wogsit? Very good; wogs should stand, not sit. Now Suhayl, remember, Canspeccy doesn’t mind you being here, but if you refrain from procreating with any Whites you’ll help preserve the quota so that some of the newer incomers can have a go.
It appears that Nevermind will not be attending tomorrow’s London demonstration (and will not, therefore, be able to meet up woth Iain Orr, Phil, etc).
“Something personal had come up”, said the man.
It reminds me a little of all those govt. front-benchers resigning “to spend more time with my family” LOL
Just catching up:
“Denmark which has swung to the right in the recent general election…”
And indeed, this is what the Guardian headline says:
“Danish rightwinger Kristian Thulesen Dahl rides high on populist tide”
But if you actually read the article, as opposed to the headline, he got a pathetic 21 percent of the vote.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/19/denmark-kristian-thulesen-dahl-populist-tide
(‘pathetic’ in terms of a ‘populist tide’)
A very well thought out blog-post. I share your hopes for Jeremy Corbyn but suspect the big wallets will be out if he looks like winning. This argument of yours is irrefutable.
“The establishment’s great difficulty is this. Given that the SNP had just slaughtered the Labour Party – and the Tories and Lib Dems – by being a genuine left wing alternative, how can the media consensus continue to insist that the left are unelectable? The answer is of course that they claim Scotland is different. Yet precisely the same establishment consensus denies that Scotland has a separate political culture when it comes to the independence debate. So which is it? They cannot have it both ways.”
Phil, I think you should consider structure. The proportional system for Holyrood elections will do better than the Westminster “largest minority overrides everyone else” cludge at keeping the SNP close to their manifesto. A Scottish constituency electorate can replace their MSP more easily and with much less uncertainty and risk than a Westminster constituency electorate can replace their MP.
Clark
https://wikileaks.org/saudi-cables/press