That Jeremy Corbyn – he had the nerve to appear on telly this morning…

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I’ve just watched a recording of this morning’s Andrew Marr show on BBC1 and it was revealing. If you went by the majority of  British newspapers, Jeremy Corbyn is Michael Foot without the brains and less dress-sense. His party is in revolt against him, he doesn’t want to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with France, and his parliamentary colleagues will probably throw him out after the Oldham by-election. With the verbal onslaught so thick and fast from within and without, Jeremy was probably somewhere in a cellar, on the floor in foetal position, whimpering.

Then who was this relaxed figure neatly dressed in a navy suit, collar and tie, trimmed beard, listening carefully to Marr’s questions and responding thoughtfully? ‘Strewth, it’s that there Jeremy Corbyn! Who’d have thunk it?

“Are you a pacifist?” Marr wanted to know. “No I’m not. But I do think that resort to acts of violence and war should be the last option, not the first.”

“MPs in your party feel betrayed by you”.

“I was elected by the party” Corbyn replied. He added that he’d emailed party members on the bombing Syria question and had responses from 70,000 of them.

“Are you going to ‘whip’ party members on this issue?”.  Corbyn politely told him he’d decide that in his own good time. “This is a debate over foreign policy – it shouldn’t be used as a way getting one over on another political party”.

Marr sighed. This wasn’t going the way it should. “Yes but it’s been a terrible, terrible few weeks for you”.

“It’s been weeks in which we’ve increased our party membership, we’ve forced the Chancellor to do a U-turn on punitive measures.”

“But there’s talk of a coup against you”.

“Some people are still not used to the fact that the Labour party is in a different place now. I have a clear mandate from the membership and far from finding my job terrible, I’m enjoying every minute of it”.

You might say that, at the end of the interview, there was one man left standing  and it wasn’t Andrew Marr. Maybe it’s time the MPs who led Labour to two consecutive defeats in general elections stopped doing the jingoist thing and recognised that they have a leader who has brought something new and exciting to their party.

17 Responses to That Jeremy Corbyn – he had the nerve to appear on telly this morning…

  1. Jim.hunter November 29, 2015 at 12:47 pm #

    Jude.Jeremy.is.a.great.man.

  2. Chris meehan November 29, 2015 at 12:55 pm #

    This man has awakened the british people to the fact that they can make decisions on policy – they do not have to accept the status quo and be led by the press and right-wingers who have destroyed everything the working classes stand for. Britain needs someone who can restore the pride of the working class.

  3. Mark November 29, 2015 at 1:21 pm #

    I listened to Corbyn this morning and thought, ‘how refreshing to hear a political leader who has honesty, integrity and democracy on his side’. He has an appeal to crumblies like me, and to young people, those political parties find difficult to engage. He has not changed in decades, but can make a difference, if the Brit labour party want re-elected, they’d better row in behind him, rather than the Tories arms industry, curiously, Farage was saying similar on Sky shortly after, raising the question, with clearly well analysed polling, where is the military push coming from?

  4. Mark November 29, 2015 at 1:23 pm #

    Yeah, Farage spellchecked

    • Jude Collins November 29, 2015 at 3:53 pm #

      Beats ‘Garage’ by a mile, Mark….

      • Mark November 29, 2015 at 7:37 pm #

        Aye, thanks for correction

        • Jude Collins November 29, 2015 at 10:11 pm #

          Fadhb ar bith, Mark – no prob.

  5. Iolar November 29, 2015 at 2:02 pm #

    “There’s talk of a coup…”

    One definition of a coup is a blow against the state. All the rhetoric about Syria helps the Tories deflect attention from welfare cuts and the publicity generated about bullying within the party.

    Katharine Viner writing in the Guardian states,

    “The plight of refugees is the crisis of our times and how we respond to it is a test of our values…Political rhetoric has successfully dehumanised these people as someone else’s problem. We don’t want them, the French don’t want them. Money has been spent on building higher, flesh-ripping fences. So here they fester. Human detritus.”

    We do not hear much about the war in Yemen which has been raging for over six months with DAILY bombing raids courtesy of the Saudi-led coalition. Oxfam reports deliberate attacks on civilians and that the country is facing a famine.

    In one report, a missile struck a bottling plant in the town of Abs. There was nothing left, no factory, no people.

    Médecins Sans Frontières had 105 patients and over 80 staff in a hospital in Kunduz Afghanistan when an aerial attack occurred on 3 October 2015, which led to the deaths of seven patients and nine members of staff.

    There are alternatives to bombing campaigns and war crimes. The bullies in the Tory Party have a track record of fighting to the last drop of another persons blood. It is refreshing to see a Labour leader standing up to the bullies.

  6. Sherdy November 29, 2015 at 2:27 pm #

    Since the east v west problems in Ukraine, Obama and Cameron have been painting Russia and Putin as the personification of all evil in the world.
    Obama is apparently not actually bombing Syria, but is giving support to those rebels who are presently fighting Assad, but he seems to be encouraging Cameron, who seems to respond to his ego being massaged, to join the French in bombing what remains of that unfortunate country.
    But M Hollande is now best friends with Putin who is enthusiastically bombing Syria, though he is doing it to protect his friend Assad. The fact that Hollande and Putin have a common enemy in ISIS keeps them friends with a common (partly) purpose.
    British warmongers are chomping at the bit to start their bombing campaign in Syria, but if they do it will be as junior partner to France: so does that mean they will be actively co-operating with arch-enemy Putin?
    If Corbyn had suggested some time ago that Britain should join Putin in joint military exercises, think of the panic there would have been in their media and among parliamentarians!
    My enemy’s enemy may be my friend, but in Syria there are so many possible permutations of friend and enemy, does anyone know who the good guys or the bad guys are, or does it change on a daily/weekly basis?
    I’m just too confused to give an opinion.

  7. Pointis November 29, 2015 at 3:01 pm #

    Jeremy Corbyn has resisted every effort of the political right wing in the tories, Labour, British media and the British establishment to stop speaking up for the British working classes!

    Is it not high time time those powerful elements within the British establishment do a “John Stalker” or a “David Kelly” on this man to shut him up?

  8. Anne November 29, 2015 at 3:41 pm #

    This morning I watched The Thick of It; a humorous insight into government spin. This is the sort of stuff I imagine going on behind the scenes in government but perhaps minus the swearing. Ummm dress sense versus spin and whipping – the political sense of whip I mean. It is so immature to attack dress sense over honesty. I don’t think we really get to know what is behind the facade of the smart suited politician. Perhaps each MP should wear a tutu to help in their daily spin. Now that would be great dress sense.

  9. Ryan November 29, 2015 at 3:51 pm #

    The UK, France, USA, etc are far more interested in removing Assad from power than defeating ISIS. Just like in Libya, they wouldn’t mind ISIS taking charge of Syria just as long as the whole region is destabilized for their own narrow self interests.

    Turkey, a NATO member, shot down a Russian military aircraft which it claimed strayed into their airspace. The surviving Russian pilot said they were not given any warning at all and denied being in Turkish airspace. When the Russian rescue helicopter came Turkish backed rebels used American supplied rockets to shoot at the helicopter. Does Turkey sound like a country seeking to defeat ISIS? I think Turkey attacking Kurdish rebels (who are at the forefront in tackling ISIS) and their inability (or refusal?…) to combat ISIS volunteers using Turkey as a route to enter Syria to join ISIS speaks for itself.

    I admire Corbyn, even though I don’t agree with all of his policies. He’s a clever man. He knows the airstrikes being planned by France/UK isn’t about ISIS at all. There’s also been no mention at all from the British/French Governments about the thousands of innocent civilians that would be killed by these airstrikes.

    Its strange isn’t it? Or maybe its just plain, old hypocrisy but when the likes of the IRA killed innocent civilians (which is, of course, wrong) its regarded as “Terrorism”. But when the British Government does it on a much, much larger scale then its “collateral damage”….

  10. Perkin Warbeck November 29, 2015 at 6:09 pm #

    As far as one knows, Esteemed Blogmeister, there is no codename revealed yet for the latest bombing raid of David ‘Rashers’ Cameron on Syria and thereabouts.

    Could be, that Jeremy Corbyn might suggest ‘Operation Sodom’? Not only would it be suitably Middle-Eastern but it would also form a pair with the name given to Bomber Harris’s aerial onslaught on Hamburg in WW2: ‘Operation Gomorrah’.

    One suspects Bomber Harris is possibly no relation. Otherwise the Hamburg Britz-Blitz (note also the porcine continuum) might have been called ‘Operation Begorrah’, given the absence of brogues on the ground.

    Bombing around the clock, ten square miles of Teutonic inner-city blocks were flattened. This proved a benchmark for the later fate of Dresden when the Anglo-Saxons levelled the capital city of Saxony. Resulting in countless thousands of German citizens being shattered into smithereens as if they were so many not so delicate pieces of porcelain.

    Bombardier Harris (probably no relation) later confided to his inner self (?) in his daily log : ‘In spite of all that happened in Hamburg, bombing proved a relatively humane method’.

    An entry which was (gulp) echoed on RTE Radio’s Sunday best show ‘This Week’ by some sinless wonder of a former British Army officer turned security pundit, as recently as (gasp) today.

    He opined that ‘war is war, and unfortunately civilians get injured’. It was, perhaps, the precise choice of the last word ‘injured’ rather than the k-word which saved him from being,erm, harassed by the ever-vigilant anglicized ankle-snappers of RTE.

    One wonders whether the Old Etonian in D’Cameron will be tempted to go one better than Bomber Harris, Unlike the PM, the unfortunate BH, unlike his two older brothers, never quite made it to wear the far-famed uniform of morning coat, waistcoat, white bow tie, winged collar and pinstriped britches.

    The reason the Bomber didn’t make it is because Harris Pater’s coffers had developed a hollow ring to them. No more cabbage in the coffers for the production of another toffee-nose.

    It is said that Britain’s wars are won on ‘ the playing fields of Eton’ but as is evidenced by the frustrating experience of BH, it is possible if not probable that even more Hamburgers than were considered necessary were scorched as a result of an individual’s sullen resentment.

    (Money balks where Eton is concerned: modern day fees cost a dozen thou per term per pupil, there being three terms per academic year).

    By contrast, D’Cameron did get to wear the winged collar known as ‘the stick up’. And probably feels that he owes it to his Alma Mater to show what the R.A.F. can really do to the Fuzzy Wuzzies without a riff raff like B. Harris in charge.

    On mature recollection, perhaps it might not be such a good wheeze for Jeremy Corbyn to suggest ‘Operation Sodom’ as a working title. Even in an ironic vein. Or, even, especially not in an ironic vein.

  11. Michael November 29, 2015 at 7:27 pm #

    #corbynforpm

    He strikes me as a head teacher kind of guy that cares about his pupils & recognises & accepts different races. A man not swayed by difference but morals of right & wrong!

    No more wars that create devastated innocent life’s in Syria!

    Corbyn for change.

    • Ryan November 30, 2015 at 1:15 am #

      ” A man not swayed by difference but morals of right & wrong!”

      For that reason alone Michael that’s why the British media will go all out to make sure Corbyn will never become British PM.