This weekend Jeremy Corbyn was re-elected Labour leader fending off rival Owen Smith by some 119,000 votes with a victory that delivered an even more commanding mandate than when he first took the nation by storm in 2015. But that has done little to appease the media, his co-politicians or the raft of doomsayer commentators. Corbyn is Mr Unelectable, and there’s nothing that grinds our gears more than an unelectable politician getting elected.
But “who decided he is unelectable,” political satirist Jonathan Pie asked in his latest viral video rant. Stood in front of the camera on what he termed “groundhog day” – a reference to the media’s incessant lambasting of the Labour leader – he quite poignantly argued that this may be the time to stop berating him and just let him get on with his job. Not that that will happen, Pie had taken the opportunity to satirise one of the most frustrating aspects of politics; The elite decides, and they ain’t shifting on their opinion of the Labour leader.
In 2014 I went to see the theatrical production ‘Great Britain’ which satirised the phone hacking scandal. Before the production started its run at the National Theatre playwright Richard Bean said he wanted to bring to light how institutions – the press, police and politicians – are essentially in bed with each other and how this threatens democracy. “20 people who talk to 20 people who talk to 20 people”, he said, is “essentially how the country is being run.” In the case of Corbyn, the elite has struck again. But this time it’s the media in cahoots with politicians and business.
Here’s how the elite have turned Jeremy Corbyn Labour leader in to Jeremy Corbyn Mr Unelectable.
Media
The media has spent the past year telling people who voted for Jeremy Corbyn that they are wrong. “How entitled is that?!”
In Pie’s words, the media is riddled with upper middle class, privately educated “twats”, and he goes against the grain. We argued the very same thing back in August. As Robert Owens said, we all know that newspapers play a crucial role in British democracy, but it is troubling that the majority of the UK press is owned by a handful of right-wing billionaires, most of whom don’t live here.
“They’ve already told you what to think on a multitude of issues. You think you made up your own mind, and you think you’re right. But, you didn’t, and you aren’t.”
Politics
Apparently being a Blairite makes you electable. That’s what the wealth of current Labour politicians would have you believe. But guess what, that was 1997, today we’re in 2016 and the political environments couldn’t be more disparate.
The truth is, as Pie points out, that most of these old hats are just missing the good old days. The “good old spin doctoring, war mongering, Bush felating, Tory imitating good old days.”
“Fuck integrity, they just want power.”
Business
And finally, how does Mr Corbyn rub up against our greedy, power suckling, capitalist businesses? Well, not too good, and they have all the sway in which to let us know. As Owens wrote in this publication almost 80 per cent of our press is owned by a handful of mostly foreign-based billionaires, and they’re the ones peddling our correspondents to brain-wash us against the first brand of honest politics I’ve seen in my entire life.
We didn’t decide Jeremy Corbyn is unelectable, the powerful elite did. Because if he was to cure the sort of societal ills that have crippled this country it simply wouldn’t be good for business.
Is Corbyn Really Mr Unelectable?
Corbyn is not Mr Unelectable. He may not be an ex Pfizer lobbyist, but that particular pharma company is evil to its core and yet holds more weight in parliament than most politicians. He may not support the monarchy, but elitism is the reason we have such vast levels of inequality in this country, and he may not support war, yet all those at the top calling for Blarism should be reminded of the state we left the Middle East following the Iraq invasion. Corbyn is fighting the entire media class, and he just won. So instead of saying that he’s unelectable, “why don’t Labour MPs use all their energy to prove he is electable?”
Well said Mr Pie, well said.