Sunday 20 September 2015

Unpublished Observer letter on Corbyn

For years, the Observer has been railing against governments for their lack of compassion, and their failure to prevent both inequality and tax avoidance rising, whilst also acknowledging that decline in trade union power has enabled employers to pay well below the living wage, and impose zero-hours contracts, and stressing the need for a more ethical foreign policy. So when Labour elects a leader, who promises not to tinker with the system, but to transform it, what happens? The Observer reacts as if the country is on the brink of violent revolution!
Andrew Rawnsley has been putting the case for a Tory-lite leader for weeks, ridiculing the Islington MP for his left-wing policies, and now has the audacity to stress how Corbyn can expect a “massive onslaught” from the “Tory press” in the coming weeks (Jeremy Corbyn should beware his enemies- and even more his friends,13/09/15). Even the editorial, rather than emphasising what a wonderful opportunity Labour now has, to create a society based on fairness rather than greed, on responsibility not exploitation, chooses to continue with the Blairite mantra about “little that is new about his ideas” (Unless Corbyn moves beyond protest politics, he has no hope of gaining power,13/09/15).Taking on the bankers, the tax avoiders and the Rachman-like landlords, all sound “new” to me!
    Predicting electoral disaster five years hence, attributing Corbyn`s victory to the “lacklustre campaigns of the other candidates”, and stressing the need for Umunna, Hunt and co to “work out what the moderate alternative is to Corbynism”, are all ideas which undoubtedly will have appeared in the right-wing press, anxious for the return of feeble opposition to the state-shrinking policies of the Tories. Could it be that the Parliamentary Labour Party isn`t the only left-wing institution losing touch with its constituency?

No comments:

Post a Comment