Friday 11 November 2016

Jeremy Corbyn could be the Trump act in the UK

After the very interesting discussion of BQ's excellent posts yesterday re the narrow Trump win in America, I thought we should continue the theme today.


The main lessons from the US elections and Brexit:


1 - People are fed up with Political Correctness and the Media push of all things liberal; equally they are cowed to speak out, ruining polls and making the public/private discourse in the Anglosphere discombobulated.


2 - Establishment=Bad (not that Merkel got the memo yet when you see her response to Trump, means she is toast next year though at least). Candidates like Hillary can't win nor Cameron.


3 - Anti-Establishment figures can be very radical indeed and still get elected on very weak, populist platforms.


4 - Polling is wrong, real people matter and the crowds of Trump v Hillary and crowds of Leave vs Remain are good evidence for this sea-change.


All this could be very good for Jeremy Corbyn;


- He is anti-establishment
- He has a weak, populist policy platform
- He is not an Establishment figure


On the other hand;


- He loves political correctness and does not play the blame immigration game.
- He is left-wing at a time when the Anglosphere is electing right-wing populists.
- He is not new, he has been around for a while which means by the time there is an election people may well have made up their minds.


Overall, there is reason to think Labour will do much better than expected with Corbyn given the developments in real world political economy of late. The Tory party may or may not prove competent to deliver Brexit. UKIP will only take on the Trump mantle with a strong, charismatic leader and they have just lost that one in Farage.


My personal call will be that it will not be Corbyn though. Too much of his personality is projected onto to him by willing believers. Trump and Farage are the opposite, leading through incitement of the Outrage Bus. Corbyn's lack of charisma and penchant for hang-wringing will not in the end be enough to carry him over the line (barring crazy events, like massive Brexit recession or some such).



30 comments:

Nick Drew said...

I am with "won't be Corbyn": 1,000 years of British history tells us that peasants' revolts always end badly

for all his squatting by the railway toilet he is certainly charismatic enough to draw hyper-ventilating crowds, and they all look around & think (understandably): this must be *gasps* the Revolution - look, we can mobilise tens of thousands!

but it's more like the Children's Crusade: or the Pied Piper leading everyone down to the beach and building a gigantic sandcastle: impressive in its own way, but so what?

I was with an intelligent, business-like lefty yesterday who confirmed that these enthusiastic idiots cause nothing but unproductive disruption in the Labour Party: attend meetings, create havoc, go missing when it comes to canvassing / leafletting / manning the stall in the market on saturdays

Blue Eyes said...

Interesting comment re Merkel. A friend of mine has switched directly from Brexit-mourning to Trumpophobia and was saying she thought May had kowtowed but at least Merkel had stood her ground on human rights and equality. I think there may be something in that, but then I am not the kind of elector you are talking about.

The problem with Corbyn is that he doesn't say what he believes. He kind of hints at it. He won't nationalise the railways without compensation, for example, which might actually be a vote winner. Instead he waffles about taking over franchises when they come up.

I think people would appreciate a return to more transparency. For example, an acceptance that politics cannot achieve all for everyone; that everything is a compromise.

Jan said...

What the newly elected have in common is they say what they mean and mean what they say ie no PR machine and toeing the party line at all costs. I think Corbyn did very well in dodging all the bullets which must have come his way (and are still coming at him) from the Blair party machine. in a way it doesn't matter whether they are left or right so long as they truly believe in their approach and are honest.

Having said that Trump at least will have his eye on the bottom line and have a business-like mindset. True lefties spend like crazy and never seem to realise that someone somewhere has to pay for it all. Corbyn has been underestimated though and may yet surprise us.

Anonymous said...

I think we need to be careful, to differentiate here between generation snowflake chucking their toys out of the pram - embracing Socialism/Communism/Critical theory and its rampant misanthropy, a bunch of precepts not much different from the those written down in C6-7th Arabia and lock stock and literally.

Different, vastly superior at that. To properly discern betwixt the financial and mental incontinence, and amoral, immaturity of the above.

And the quiet Englishman [and Scots, Welsh and Irish for that matter] along with our American cousins and I've studied to Doctorate level - let's put that one to bed [shall we?]...............Yes in direct contrast to, the white hot anger of people who see our countries pillage, fucked over and we want something in the Genghis Khan style for those bastards - cold, very cold.

"but it's more like the Children's Crusade: or the Pied Piper leading everyone down to the beach and building a gigantic sandcastle: impressive in its own way, but so what?"

Momentum, SWP and emily five bellies Odonnell's animal commie piggies - I hope you're talking about NICK.

What I want and what Corbyn's halfwits desire - are fucking poles apart, I want freedom, little and even less than that government, but I want a big army and a bigger Navy, where the rule of law is writ LARGE and where the law, it effects to treat everybody as equals - not the apartheid of Multiculturalism. I'm so fucking tired of those wet tossers MPs in Westhamster who've never had a proper job, the public sector aristocracy and the meejah priestesses, halfwit Beeb experts telling me how to run my life, what to think, how wrong I and that I must some sort of faggot hating [no, imho gays can do as they wish but not to shove it down my throat - that's all] alien hating [just a certain cult], black hating [no not at all I've many AfroCarib mates and I love 'em], waycist!! - no, not a bit of it, I just hate fuckwit Socialists.

And then fashioning an abrupt, very, very precipitous fireball END FOR: the green agenda - but that's for another day.

Corbyn, seeesh I wouldn't lend him my spit.

botogol said...

It was to some extent made socially unacceptable to support Brexit and to support Trump, hence there was a current of opinion that was invisible to the chattering classes : they never heard it expressed by anyone that mattered, and the pollsters were misled.

this doesn't apply to Corbyn in the same way. Corbyn supporters may be giggled at but they are not shamed.

so I don't think that Corbyn support is vastly understated in the polls.

James Higham said...

Corbyn, anything like Trump? Bizarre.

L fairfax said...

Please no, he could turn us into Venezuela. He said
"Thanks Hugo Chavez for showing that the poor matter and wealth can be shared"
Wealth was not shared in Venezuela it was destroyed.

@"Corbyn supporters may be giggled at but they are not shamed.

so I don't think that Corbyn support is vastly understated in the polls. "
I am so hope that is true.

Dick the Prick said...

I think Elby may have nailed it - cheers for the chuckles tho :-)

Have a good weekend folks - I'm off to grab me some pussy!

Electro-Kevin said...

"He loves political correctness" Which means any success will be by default as there is no clamour for more political correctness.

O/T Should we be concerned that Theresa May was so low in Trump's telephone directory ?

Nick Drew said...

He loves political correctness

hmmm. He very pointedly attended an SWP fuction against all advice and previous undertakings not to. For those who don't follow SWP goings-on, check out the sordid 'comrade delta' affair

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/05/comrades-war-decline-and-fall-socialist-workers-party
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/mar/12/swp-rape-implosion-why-i-care

Charlie said...

Nope, Corbyn may be able to get a few thousand people to a rally, but in the main still represents a lot of things that the shy, conservative majority despise. Career politician, never had a proper job, advocates spunking more of your hard-earned on wasters and ne'er do wells, big on political correctness (which up until about ten years ago I would have defended, but PC 2.0 is just ludicrous).

I could go on; suffice to say, Corbyn's Labour will be annihilated at the next GE and the usual rent-a-mob of hippies, dossers, luvvies and slebs will react with predictable outrage.

I say bring it on, the reaction to Trump's election (essentially, protests against democracy) make for great viewing.

CityUnslicker said...

EK


The US reported that May was the first foreign leader to get an invite to meet with him.

Somewhat different from focusing on the order of the calls...says it all about the TV media here - remoaners the lot of 'em.

Anonymous said...

May is merely the backdrop. So are other world leaders. Trump, the ultimate businessman, spotted a gap.

It takes £100's of millions to mount a takeover attempt for a blue-chip company. The guy has taken over the whole of US for just over £50mn.

Brilliant.

If you think he is a politician, you're delusional. His meeting with May will likely be at Turnberry or one of his UK assets.

dustybloke said...

Corbyn's distasteful personality will come to the fore during the campaign.

In addition, he dislikes intensely being interviewed, looking like an irritated Geography master with haemorrhoids.

Finally, what Eloy said.

Steven_L said...

but PC 2.0 is just ludicrous

It strikes me as mainly unhappy, depressed people complaining their life is depressing and miserable these days rather than anybody with a reasonable grievance. Either that or weird folk who get off on discussing their fetishes in public.

Electro-Kevin said...

I would get off discussing my obscene fetishes in public but I have my reputation to consider.

Charlie said...

Indeed Steven_L. Political Correctness, for me, was always a simple case of treating other people as you would wish to be treated, allowing them to air their views no matter what their race, sex or background. Because, not that long ago, nobody pretended to have a different ethnicity, sex, or background, than the one they were born with.

It has unfortunately morphed into bullying others into accepting a single world view without discussion or dissent, cheered on by the safe-space dwelling, tearful idiots that academia has taken to churning out. Useful idiots, to the cultural Marxists who have strange fetishes about unisex toilets, but idiots none the less. They're all falling for it, slowly, proclaiming all cultures equal, no matter what the evidence says, labelling themselves "citizens of the world" (I'd love to see how they'd get on in most of Africa or the Middle East) and turning out in great numbers to protest the result of democratic elections.

I'm 35 and I despair for them. There's never been a better time to be alive, yet they go out of their way to find conflict, new things to be upset about, new "opinion pieces" (but no new opinions) to share on Facebook. I feel genuinely sorry for them - they should be laughing their heads off but their moping around in self-pity.

Charle said...

*they're :-)

theProle said...

I work in the office of a small engineering business in the Midlands.

The almost the entire staff bar voted Brexit - one of our lads (typical Brit WWC lad, aged about 30, only really interested in beer football and sex), got himself registered to vote, and went out and voted for the first time in his entire life in the referendum. (Needless to say, he voted leave).

Opinions were more devided on Trump, but had we all had a vote I think he might of scored over half of us.

Corbyn on the other had - if he comes up in conversation, or gets a mention on the the news, we all laugh at him. If he fancies re-inventing himself as an anti-estabishment populist, he'd better get a move on - and the sorts of policies he'd have to offer to win over our lot would alienate half his current core vote...

Electro-Kevin said...

"where the rule of law is writ LARGE and where the law, it effects to treat everybody as equals"

If you take it up the batty without a condom the cash strapped NHS will provide a pill on the taxpayer. The Judges have ruled it so.

The same Judicial interference that is helping to hinder Brexit.

Bill Quango MP said...

Ivan commented yesterday and put up this link.

Its a very good read. A guy working in a US city, with a media, white collar job, but from a poor, rural US area, explaining why people are voting Trump.

You can read all the same sneering Thornberry, disapproving liberalism that people found here when they wanted a say in their own lives.

But the stat that surprised me was a map of the USA county by county.
It was like looking at the Brexit map. A sea of leave with tiny islands of remain.

Same for trump. An ocean of anti-PC ers, with islands and reefs of liberals .

See, political types talk about "red states" and "blue states" (where red = Republican/conservative and blue = Democrat/progressive), but forget about states. If you want to understand the Trump phenomenon, dig up the much more detailed county map.

http://www.rawstory.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/CountyMap2012.main_-800x430.jpg

...that makes it look like Obama's blue party is some kind of fringe political faction that struggles to get 20 percent of the vote.

Really does show just how rural America , like the Uk, really is.

Corbyn seems to be connecting with the cities. Labour already has the cities. He needs to Trumpify if he wants to do better.


The rest of that article - it is good.
http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-trumps-rise-that-no-one-talks-about/

Steven_L said...

I read that too, it was a cracking link, I nearly shared it on fb and I don't generally do politics on fb. As a 'white collar' 'city council worker' that grew up in small town northumberland I think it hits the nail on the head. I nearly added a comment yesterday, but there was literally nothing to add.

The best way to explain 'this' to people UK-wise is harking back to the Bush-Blair years and Iraq. Down in a London pub a London lefty council worker was quizzing me on what folk in the north east thought about the war. He imagined them all reading Pilger columns in the Mirror and deserting labour in droves.

I told him most of the folk I knew supported the war. He asked if it was because of the WMD / 45 minutes thing. I had to tell him he was over-analysing and that they actually read Andy McNab books and simply thought bombing the ragheads was a good policy.

Charlie said...

I shared the Wong article on FB and it got a whole 2 likes.

I shared an admittedly crap photo of a tattoo someone had done of Trump sucking a penis. 28 likes.

People don't like to have to think too hard about these things. They'd rather read a meme or watch a 5 second vine. That's why the liberal left get away with it. Their policies can be summed up nicely with a meme. Parliamentary sovereignty or economic decimation of rural America can't.

Jim said...

The electorate want maverick politicians and aren't really bothered about their practical policies, true enough, so good for Corbyn, right?

Wrong. There's one other crucial thing they are looking for and its patriotism. People want someone who will look after them, stand up for them on the world stage, take no sh*t, put them first. All the things Corbyn isn't and won't. Pick an enemy of the UK and you'll find JC supporting them, and attacking our friends. He blatantly dislikes vast swathes of the UK population, and everything they stand for, and doesn't hide these facts.

It would be pretty easy for an economically hard left socialist to sweep to power in the UK, but only if he is culturally conservative with it, because thats what the working classes are. JC may be the former, he most definitely isn't the latter, nor is anyone in Labour any more. So he's stuck with his current 25-30% support, the culturally liberal middle classes who for some strange reason also want economic socialism. Social workers and teachers, that sort of thing. Everyone else thinks he's a tw@t.

Blue Eyes said...

"Cracking link" - very good.

Brilliant article though. Shows that after 250 years England and America are still basically the same.

It doesn't explain why the suburbs/commuter-rural bits of England voted Leave. Nearly everyone in my office voted Leave, and they are all educated prosperous types.

It doesn't explain the Tory/Labour ring doughnut around inner London. Why are people from Uxbridge so solidly blue when three miles further in there is a sea of red until you get to the Essex suburbs?

Anonymous said...

"where the rule of law is writ LARGE and where the law, it effects to treat everybody as equals"

If you take it up the batty without a condom the cash strapped NHS will provide a pill on the taxpayer. The Judges have ruled it so.

The same Judicial interference that is helping to hinder Brexit.



Listen for the hard of hearing, Common law ie English statute has been replaced. In the UK, the law has been usurped and replaced - we are under the Aegis of the ECHR and the judges to a man of them are - attached to the ECHR and to upholding it.

Britain commenced the EUropeanization process of introducing EUropean tort way back in the 60's Jenkins discrimination laws meant exactly what Enoch so eruditely alluded to in the phrase, eventually "the black man will have the whip hand"

What I was implying and that you should have inferred - we are all equal in the eyes of the law, ie the law needs to be made equitable and just.

You can describe the ECJ/ECHR as mamy things but equitable and just are not words even vaguely familiar to Brussels make it up as you go along to suit the needs and requirements of government and the multinationals [remember TTIP?] EU law fabrication and authoritarian factory.

Fair, equal, balanced, democratic, open to scrutiny and appeal - is that too much to ask?

Blue Eyes said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
K said...

Nice cracked.com link. Interesting that it's from David Wong. Wong (and cracked.com as a whole) was a popular edgy internet writer back in the 90s/early 00s but sold out to SJWism 5-10 years ago. If he's willing to publish an article like that on cracked.com (which these days is Buzzfeed light) then it could signal changes. A British equivalent would be maybe someone like Charlie Brooker going back to his pre-TV roots instead of being a smug twat.

There's definitely a divide between those that didn't vote for Trump but understand why you would and those that didn't and think he's now going to gas the gays.

Saw an interesting post on Reddit about how Pence is only there to discourage assassination attempts on Trump and won't be allowed to do anything. Apparently every Republican except Reagan has picked an extreme VP.

Electro-Kevin said...

The 'great' link.

America didn't 'lose it's f***king mind'. It regained its common sense.

Anyone who doesn't think lefty is always insane, remember ?

Anonymous said...

"It doesn't explain the Tory/Labour ring doughnut around inner London."

Inner London is no longer a British city.