MEA CULPA CORBYN

Something to smile about

I was wrong about Jeremy Corbyn. I followed the accepted wisdom, which said that you cannot win an election, without appealing to the floating voters in the marginal constituencies, the sort of people for whom the character of the potential Prime Minister is all-important but who often do not know the name of their local MP, I have said in past posts that voting for him was self-indulgent, putting your own priorities above the need to select a leader who could form an effective government.

Actually, I was right about Jeremy Corbyn.  He does not and never will appeal to these voters and it is unlikely that a party led by him would ever win power.  Note to Labour Party - you did not actually win the last election even if it has to be said that you did much better than expected.  Labour led by Corbyn won more seats than when led by Neil Kinnock, Gordon Brown or Ed Milliband, who tried to pull Labour back into the middle ground and stay onside with the Daily Mail and the Sun. Corbyn sensibly did not get involved in slanging matches with these papers and just ignored them while they poured increasingly hysterical and ineffective abuse on him, ending up looking pretty silly in the process.

Instead Labour changed the arithmetic by getting young people to vote and for this we owe them a huge debt of gratitude.  At the same time as young people are showing apathy and antipathy towards politics we are moving closer to giving sixteen year olds the vote. This may seem like a nonsense but it is surely better to err on the side of adventure than cynicism, to give them a right and a power, even if they are  unlikely to use it. Corbyn played an effective, humane low-key campaign with that motto ‘For the many not the few’ while his opponents parrot on about the ‘magic money-tree’.  We have not heard it so often since the Grenfell fire in which about eighty died because the private company running the place saved a grant total of £5000 by covering the building with flammable rather than inflammable cladding.  Think about it: that works out at about sixty quid a life for those burnt alive inside.  Some saving.

To allow ourselves a little cynicism, however, Labour did win a lot more seats because of money, which has a far greater impact on peoples’ voting habits than we often like to admit, both in whether they vote and who for.  Corbyn promised students that a government led by him would eliminate tuition fees and he at least gave the impression that it would eliminate student debt altogether.  Bernie Sanders had a similar message in the USA and stayed in the Democratic race far longer than he would have done otherwise.  I come from a generation that was actually paid to go to university in the form of grants from the government (not that any of us said ‘Thank you’, just moaned about their inadequacy).  My own children had to borrow but got through before the fees went up to £9,000 a year giving most student a £25-30,000 debt to go with those letters after their name. Although low income families were supposed to be protected from this, the evidence seems to show that they were put off further education because of a fear of long-term debt, while middle class students thought they could live with it. You certainly tend to earn more if you have a degree and it is not unreasonable to expect people to pay towards this privilege.  

Yet, with higher incomes, they will be paying more in tax anyway in the long run so maybe that could be expected to cover the benefit gained. Notice how Labour won seats in university towns where the student vote was organised and encouraged to turn out.  Idealism is all very well but it took the prospect of saving twenty to thirty grand to actually get many current and ex-students to vote, my daughter amongst them.

Holding the election in term time was not, then, a good idea.  That was only the first of many mistakes by the usually efficient and effective Conservative machine.  Leaders who do not have to campaign for the leadership of their parties, like Gordon Brown and Theresa May, are often out of touch with their MPs and followers because they have not had to win their support the hard way and think that they rule by divine right.  May had seemed a cool customer until put under pressure when she made several mistakes like refusing to debate with opponents or engage with voters, surrounding herself with yes-men and women and looking weak as a result.

The biggest boo-boo, however, was surely the so-called dementia tax, whereby people were told that the high value of their houses should go towards paying for their care in old age.  Again, this is not entirely unreasonable but it means that, if you have a heart-attack and drop dead at sixty, you pass on your estate intact whereas, if you go gaga gradually, your inheritance will be whittled away to pay for nurses who clear up your droolings.  So, while Corbyn was energising student voters by promising them freedom from debt, potential May-supporters were put off voting for her in case she took away their savings. 

Bad move, Theresa.   You wanted an increased majority to push Brexit through and ended up mortally-wounded. The first sign that things were not going to go to plan was that lady Brenda from Bristol who was appalled at the idea of yet another election.  While Theresa struggles to look like she is in charge of Brexit and passes thinly-disguised bribes to Ulster bigots, Jeremy soaks up the adulation of the crowds at Glastonbury.  My friend Simon Rodway, an unreconstructed leftie and Corbyn fan, sadly died before this election, having hoped to live to see him reach Downing Street.  I still don’t think it will ever happen (if you are reading this in Heaven) and I think Blair would have walked this election. Despite this I feel optimistic and hopeful, glad that the British gave the government a bloody nose. If there is one thing you should never do it is to take the people for granted.    

My other blog is diaryofatouristguide.blogspot.com. Edwin Lerner