Corbyn

 Interesting times.  I have a strong gut feeling that the election of Jeremy Corbyn really represents something rather different from what the mainstream political pundits are claiming.  Part of this is driven by the utterly hysterical attacks that have been directed at him.  Those kind of attacks don't come from people who have ideological differences with their target, they come from people who are very frightened.  So what are they frightened of?  Not being packed off to shovel shit in a Labour Camp in the Outer Hebrides.  Not even Corbyn's bitterest enemies think he's remotely like that.  I don't think even that they are terrified of him scrapping Trident.  I'm sure George Osborne would do that if he thought he could avoid being lynched by the ladies in hats.  After all, what rational person spends a third of their defence budget on something of purely symbolic value?  No, I think it's that Corbyn represents a threat to the self perpetuating oligarchy of Westminster.  Two exchanges; one recent, one not so recent are influencing me here.  One was Tony Blair disparaging the achievements of Harold Wilson's children when he made it perfectly clear that Blair sprogs would be expected to do much better than being a school teacher or an Open University lecturer.  Clearly, in Blairite terms, people who occupy the sort of jobs that aspiring working class kids used to dream of are not PLU.  The second was a Twitter exchange between an East London Labour MP (who I knew well in the days when he was decidedly to the left of the party).  It went roughly:

Randomdude:  Tony Blair is a big fat liar
MP: He won three elections
Randomdude:  Tony Blair is a war criminal
MP: He won three elections

and so on.  The winning of elections seems to have become the sole purpose of the PLP.  I don't even know whether they believe that in doing so they actually acquire the power to do anything.  I doubt it though some may still harbour that illusion.

So, Corbyn, the rise of UKIP, the massacre of the Labour Party in Scotland.  (I wonder what would happen if the Tories held a leadership election on a franchise as broad as Labour's?) The political consensus that has endured since Margaret Thatcher effectively removed trade unions from the political equation seems to be fracturing.  I don't know what comes next but I hope it includes a redemocratisation of the political process and institutions because a combination of the forces that may be unleashed by a collapse of consensus coupled with Prime Ministerial dictatorship is a profoundly unattractive prospect.