Monday 14th
September
48 hours after his astonishingly
vast victory in the Labour Leadership, Jeremy Corbyn is fast discovering that
you campaign in corduroy, but lead in a suit. There isn’t a donkey-jacket in
sight.
Whilst 60% of Labour’s electorate
backed the Jezziah, 90% of his MPs wanted anyone but, and he is delicately
trying to balance his Shadow Cabinet between his supporters, like new Shadow
Chancellor John McDonnell, and his opponents, like new Shadow Minister for Going
Where the Wind Blows, Andy Burnham. In the course of this, he scored a minor
own-goal.
Although Corbyn – who, as the
government has told us is a threat to your family’s security, and possibly your
pets as well – has produced the first Shadow Cabinet with more women than men
(16 to 15), he has failed to give any woman a position in the top three posts,
to go along with the all-male leadership elected on Saturday.
When they realised they were
copping a lot of flak for this, Team Jez hastily promoted the already-appointed
Shadow Business Secretary Angela Eagle to the honorific position of Shadow
First Secretary of State, whose principal (and indeed only) duty is to stand in
for Corbyn when he’s not doing PMQs. So, it’s a bit like being Shadow Supply
Teacher.
Corbyn – who, as we know, will
personally come round and disable your burglar alarm – responded to the
criticism by asking “What is a top job?”
The ones at the top, Jeremy. The ones
whose purview largely define the rest of policy.
Tuesday 15th September
As another day dawns, one wonders
whether, when Jeremy wakes up, the little voice who just wanted to be on the
Foreign Affairs Select Committee whispers in his head “Do I have to do this
again?”
The man is on a rollercoaster.
Today he has to go to St Paul’s for a service (“damn – got to wear a tie”), and
then onto the TUC Conference in Brighton (“hurrah – my mate Len will be there”),
and then back to London to prepare for PMQs (“bloody hell – I’ve got 40,000
questions from supporters to read”). Furthermore, he’s got to do all of this
whilst trying to not express a policy on the European Union whatsoever, because
that seems like a key divisive issue in his new Cabinet.
Nevertheless, because he doesn’t
really talk to the press, the major event is his TUC speech. Members of the right
wing press watch attentively, play the Corbyn Bingo Drinking Game. Editor of The Daily Mail, Paul Dacre, gets “Hezbollah”,
“Hamas”, “Regicide”, “The Jews”, and “I’m going to come round to your house and
threaten your granny’s security” on his card. Having got such a blockbuster
selection of phrases, he cannot understand how he is still completely sober when
the speech comes to an end.
Wednesday 16th September
Perhaps this morning, Jeremy
Corbyn just awoke to a feeling of sheer disbelief. The papers are awash with the
unbelievable and wantonly provocative incident where a lifelong republican didn’t
sing “God Save the Queen”.
His refusal at yesterday’s
service marking the 75th anniversary of The Battle of Britain to
sing the national anthem, but rather to stand in respectful silence, has caused
a storm, though many seem to not really care, pointing out the hypocrisy charge
had he sung it.
Then it got worse. Kate Green
(Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities), who said that she would have sung
it and would have advised him to sing it, and was touring the news studios endlessly
to say so.
At last, Jez responded, but
seemed to say little. He didn’t explain why he hadn’t sung, and didn’t clarify
whether or not he would at future such events. Not for the first time this
week, the Labour press team had to issue a statement explaining what he meant.
He will now sing the national anthem, and thus the teacup was eventually
cleared of storms.
So, at last, we reached his first
PMQs, where he brought the new politics to the despatch box. Not only was he refusing
to engage in histrionics, but all of his questions were inspired by members of
the public; Marie, Steven, Paul, Claire, Gail, and Angela to be precise. See: even
his question selections have female majorities.
Some thought it was gimmicky,
others refreshing. Ed Miliband thought it was astonishing that when Jeremy
mentioned real people, it seemed rather genuine, and didn’t sound like he was a
maniac pursuing “ordinary” people around parks to see if they had a soundbite
he could borrow.
David Cameron embraced the calmer
tone for what it was: that is, a platform for him to explain how great the
government’s work is without any heckling from the other side. To that end he
mentioned the words “economy” and “security” like a parrot that’s owned by a
salesman of cheap padlocks.
Shortly after the circus was over, events far
away finally began to overtake this bizarre week in British politics, as
migrants attempted to rush the Hungarian border gate, meeting an aggressive and
resolute police response. Next week, Mr Corbyn will have to find some very well
informed members of the public to formulate questions on this.Part Two available to read here.
Follow North by North Westminster on Twitter: https://twitter.com/NByNWestminster
Like our Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/northbynorthwestminster?fref=nf
Follow us on SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/north-by-north-westminster
No comments:
Post a Comment