Tuesday 10 January 2017

Why Corbyn is F****d: Exhibit A

Around Xmas the massed ranks of the political correspondents were full of how Corbyn's new team were strategising a turnaround.  Spotting that the Brexit and Trump phenomena are widely attributed to a pervasive 'anti-establishment' zeitgeist (in some accounts, anti liberal establishment), they determined that Jezza would be positioned as the insurgent candidate, the perfect representative of anti-establishmentarianism:  Jezza the authentic, the man of the people, the inveterate rebel - and by no means a liberal.  

(Just one link to illustrate - and you can easily find more of this stuff. Chipping in with a perspective from my own rather unexpected window on this world, I can confirm that the impact (as they see it) and simplicity of the Brexit slogan 'take back control' has had a deep effect on Team JC, and they intend to make it their own.)

But then, they must deal with the holy idiot Jezza himself.  Once in a while (see this pack of nonsense) he can just about be made to put on a tie and read his lines.  But then someone talks to him, and off he goes, right off piste and straight down into the crevasse. 
John Humphrys asked if he would like to limit how much fat cats can earn.  Corbyn replied.   I would like there to be some kind of high earnings cap, quite honestly.  When asked at what level the cap should be set, he replied: I can’t put a figure on it and I don’t want to at the moment ... Then Humphrys asked him if he was really talking about a law to limit income.  At first Corbyn appeared to row back a little bit.  I think let’s look at it ... I’ve got a view on it ... I’m not wedded to a figure on it.  But, when pressed again, Corbyn was unequivocal.  I would like to see a maximum earnings limit, quite honestly, because I think that would be a fairer thing to do.
You know what, Jezza - I don't think your team are gonna let you do that.  Let's imagine what he might plump for.  

"Well, an MP earns 75 grand, and that's more than enough for anyone, so, let's say, £80k?  Sounds really generous to me ..."  

"But Jezza (*collective sigh*), half the management of the Beeb pay themselves a quarter-mill.  We gotta keep these people onside!"  

"Well maybe 100k - although I can't quite see how that would go down with those chaps we met last week at the Grimsby Working Men's Club - that wouldn't seem like much of an earnings limit to them!

"Which is WHY we can't have a limit at all!!"

"Look here, I thought you said we were going to be the People's Party again!  That's the only reason I agreed to wear that suit last week!"   

"Jeremy, trust us on this one ... remember?  You get to stand on the stage at those big rallies where they love you and wet themselves on the floor; we do the policy.  [Cancel that interview this afternoon!]   There - have another chocolate digestive; and we'll go to the pub later.  Oh, and we won't mention this to John - OK?" 

ND

+ + UPDATE

It's very instructive - and BTW full marks to John Humphrys for nudging him into this slurry-filled pit.  The Grauniad's pundits have leapt into action endorsing Jezza's mutterings about a pay cap, immediately interpreting it as a multiple of average company pay rates, i.e. something you could (just about) imagine being practical to legislate upon, even if the consequences would be dire.  But no!  The saintly one is indeed thinking (well, burbling) of an absolute £ number
"Corbyn, who earns about £138,000 a year, later told Sky News he anticipated any maximum wage would be “somewhat higher than that”. “I think the salaries paid to some footballers are simply ridiculous, some salaries to very high earning top executives are utterly ridiculous ...  An Arsenal fan, said he thought his team’s manager, Arsène Wenger, “would probably like it very much indeed, he’d probably like there to be a maximum wage cap on the whole of the Premier League”."
So he's even - in his brainless way - thought about the soccer aspect (see AndrewZ's comment below), proving yet again he has not a single clue as to how the real world operates.  As Hovis says (in Comments, too) he's in full-on rogue mode.  Which was the original point.  Complete, unreconstructed, unreconstructable nutter!

+ + FOOTNOTE

After a day of carnage for Corbyn's relaunch, which finally saw him being bounced from the top slot on the BBC 10 pm news, Laura Kuenssberg’s closing words on the subject: 
Doomed to fail”...  

26 comments:

AndrewZ said...

Some of the highest-paid people in the country are sports stars and popular entertainers. Even a very high income limit would catch many Premier League players. So if Labour ever adopted this idea they would be going into a general election promising to cause a mass exodus of top players from English clubs. Political genius!

barnacle bill said...

Nick I would not dismiss this one out of hand, there's a lot of pent up anger and unrest in this country. If Labor could find some one to craft a proper policy on this one it could run.

After all twelve months ago if you had said we would vote "Leave" and Trump would be about to get the keys to the White House friends would have been sagely nodding their heads and avoiding you.

Jim said...

Apart from which presumably it could only affect PAYE employees? Or is it a confiscation of all income earning assets at the same time?

Steven_L said...

If Labor could find some one to craft a proper policy on this one it could run.

They used to have one - the bankers bonus tax and the 50p rate - and it wasn't enough to save them. Although I reckon you'll see variations on both of these in the 2020 manifesto.

Blue Eyes said...

The precise details, levels and implementation will form part of the coalition agreement with the Greens.

Jan said...

I heard the interview and thought "oh dear" when he succumbed to JHs sharp questioning. You'd think after all the time he's spent as an MP he could've avoided that one. Thereafter the beeb gleefully put it as the lead headline on the hourly bulletins.

Do they really want a curb on pay or maybe it's time to look at a wealth tax....... (putting on tin-hat quickly)

Blue Eyes said...

Jan, Jezza is one of these people who haven't lived 60 or so years but who have lived the same year 60 times...

You are right, why not say "we want a more progressive income tax" and nobody could argue against it. Why not say "we want a heavier property tax" or even a wealth tax and at least some people might agree. But a maximum wage is just BS.

Which is why the Greens like it.

hovis said...

Is policy or flying a kite in an interview to play well with members?

Aside and (possibly) more imortant I see there is now no Labour opposition to removal of free movement in the Brexit. An irritatigly right on aquaintancce of mine has resigned both his Labour and Momentum membership to move to ... the Lib Dems I kid you not.

hovis said...

ok just checked had time to look elsewhere and seen this is a full on unformed policy and the free movement stance is fluid at best.

Anonymous said...

'Fluid'?

Stream of stale piss would be another description.

dearieme said...

If a majority (presumably) of Dem supporters in the US could prefer Bernie to Hellary, is success for Jezz really unthinkable? Of course his party would immediately knife him and replace him by (who?) ... anyway, in the style of Ken Newt knifing Mackintosh in London. Was it Mackintosh? The names of those who lost recede into the mists.

Scrobs. said...

What I cannot understand, is why the Beeb, in all its lefty glory, cannot try and get a few of the other old labour twits on, at least to try and revisit what they all wanted before Corbyn popped up from nowhere.

You'd have thought that they'd have had the likes of Harman, Cooper, Burnham etc, all blubbering on as they used to, before Jezza suddenly leapt into the limelight like a squirrell!

I've given up on any Beeb stuff now. They'll try and screw President Elect Trumps inauguration, with some flimsy excuse about yet another sleb dying, or a flood in Bollockistan and we'll have to resort to proper reporting from overseas, or even here, via serious websites and blogs.

For any real news, Biased BBC is easily the best to tell it as it really is, but chums here might prove me wrong!

Bill Quango MP said...

His eu policy unravelled because his advisers must have been telling him that an end to free movement means leaving the eu and the customs union and hard Brexit.

So he had a sort of stop a bit of free movement..a little..maybe.

Someone must have pointed out that if he is in the eu, then a maximum salary cap is illegal. Article 101 - cannot affect the economic rights in one member state only. Cannot make one member states earners less equal than in another.

He could, theoretically, make all salary over x pounds taxable at 99%, the eu has no say in how member states set their taxes.
But the non discrimination aspect is still a very easy legal challenge. A uk company could challenge that it is being unfairly discriminated against by having to pay the Corbyn tax. A challenge that should be won quite easily.

Blue Eyes said...

Hovis his whole stance unravelled during the day, showing that his team had not actually thought about this at all!

Wage cap becomes some sort of multiple cap (itself nonsense); immigration policy becomes an immigration non-policy. And he was apparently slagging off footballers who "ordinary" people actually like!

Twit. Funny twit. Might win 12% of votes at an election.

Blue Eyes said...

At least the LDs are consistent. They will win big among the Remoaners. Might even go up to 15 seats in 2020.

andrew said...


I have the feeling the libs will be the official opposition in June 20.

(on the basis that if you are against the cons but cannot face voting corbyn, you dont have much choice outside the SNP)

Elby the Beserk said...

More on the footy from a lifelong footy fan. Corbyn's cunning plan (for I can call it nothing else) would destroy the Premier League. Thousands of jobs would be lost, and a vast chunk of income tax as well. Indeed, he doesn't seemed to have clocked that, given that the top 1% of earners now contribute 27% of all income tax receipts, his cunning plan would wipe out the economy(at least, consistent with his Socialism) and destroy what's left of our public services.

Oh and a Happy New Year to one and all.

Elby the Beserk said...

BE - A coalition with the Greens. All one of them.

Blue Eyes said...

Elby, the collapse in revenue is almost the best part!

Electro-Kevin said...

So Jezza wants to peg top wages and that will make everyone else feel better. Really ?

He thinks that what is pissing people off is not their deteriorating living standards but the fact that there is inequality - and if we are all made to feel equally shit then we will somehow feel better.

The BBC and Labour are determined to interpret Brexit as a cry from the collective subconscience for Leftism and socialism - and possibly more EU.

They cannot handle the truth. Brexit was a rejection of Blairism, Labour and - on how it's behaved since the referendum - the BBC too.

He has to stand or fall on what he truly believes in. I think he will fall on the basis that he believes that immigration levels are OK in direct contradiction of what we were told in the referendum.

AndrewZ said...

"his team had not actually thought about this at all"

That works as a summary of the whole Corbyn era. Corbyn and his key supporters aren't political amateurs and they aren't the kind of ruthless revolutionary cadre who will do whatever it takes to get into power (even if some of them might like to imagine that they are). They are just a bunch of fantasists who don't understand how anything works in the real world and who don't understand the country that they claim to represent. They talk as though they are living in a parallel universe because for all practical purposes they are. Their campaigns are intended to appeal to a Britain that only exists in their own heads.

Nick Drew said...

aren't the kind of ruthless revolutionary cadre who will do whatever it takes to get into power (even if some of them might like to imagine that they are)

agreed, AZ - calling them out on their lack of actual revolutionary potential has been a bit of a theme around here

but there is a problem: impractical ditherers (and physical cowards) that they are, they are also much enamoured of the romance of revolution, and deeply in awe of Actually Violent People (IRA, ISIS etc - & in the case of some of Corbyn's crew, Putin) - when they meet them, they wet themselves with excitement

(George Galloway is a rather extreme manifestation)

the trouble starts when they give these people platforms and succour. Saintly idiots, useful idiots

Electro-Kevin said...

Nick - The judiciary and penal reformers are the same. I recall Hester Blumenthal having to put a menu together for submariners of £1.50 a day. They got fried fish cheeks.

Today we hear violent prisoners are being given proper fish and chip suppers from the local chippies - doubtless the heads from their cod flanks going to the Royal Navy.

To the liberal establishment there is nothing more contemptible in Britain than a dutiful and subservient pleb.

Electro-Kevin said...

PS, The violent convict is the guardian of the liberal elitist. They keep the rest of us in check. We don't fear prison or prison officers nearly so much as being with other prisoners.

The other threat is that you lose your job and end up living on an estate with such thugs.

This is what keeps us all in check. Not the law itself.

Sobers said...

" They talk as though they are living in a parallel universe because for all practical purposes they are. Their campaigns are intended to appeal to a Britain that only exists in their own heads."

This.

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