A hundred days have now passed since the Labour Party
elected Jeremy Corbyn as its leader. Actually I don't know whether they have, it
just feels like it. Anyway it might be time to write a few words about Him.
Disciples
He has a multitude of followers but they seem divided into
two sorts of disciples. There are the shouty, pierced ones who march about and
protest and the Islington ones; the
kind you see in Private Eye's, 'It's Grim
up North London' . Islingtonites do not often march about. They write
tweets.
While both groups of disciples support "anti-austerity"
and oppose all cuts, naturally, the latter think of themselves as being at the smart end. Think Jeremy Hardy meets Clare in the Community.
Loaves and Fishes
Both sets of followers have an easy solution to problems of
the economy which is [sound fx: fanfare] to print more paper money (obviously) and
distribute it to the deserving part of the population. You can fill in your own
blanks as to who the deserving ones are. (Why in the name of all that is holy
throughout all the centuries did people and countries not discover the truth Jeremy's
disciples have discovered that printing more notes makes you richer?)
To fend off easily attacks from economic infidels "printing more notes" is called
"quantitative easing" and
distributing this money is called the much more praiseworthy and good-egg-sounding
word, "investment".
Wickedness
There is a whiff of political incense about Saint Jeremy who
lives in an unearthly world where police can enter and arrest bad people in the
Islamic State. This would obviate the need for the wickedness of killing ruthless
enemies before they have been brought before a court. History, however, has
been kind here to the UK which might easily have been led in the Second World
War by leaders frozen into inactivity when faced by the Nazis because our
police could not arrest Germany.
Meditation
Actually, followers of JC (wasn't it so delightfully apt he
should bear those initials?) do not mind a bit of frozen inactivity all that
much. Frozen inactivity enables you to criticize the government at your leisure
without the need to be have to act decisively (and often with imperfect information)
when faced with "events, dear boy, events". Do you remember the
moment from "The Life of Brian" when Judith, the "Welsh bint"
brings news of a Roman atrocity to the committee who with chuckling smugness at
her 'feminist grandstanding' set out to write "a fresh resolution" - not
the right thing but very simply the only thing in the world they are capable of.
Quiet and superior philosophical reflection is born in the moments of religious
devotion provided by frozen inactivity.
Prophet
Please remember that Saint Jeremy is faced by wickedness (see
above) at every turn. Homophobia, Islamophobia, Austerity, Sexism, Nuclear War, Denial of LGBT (have I got those
initials right?) rights, Gender Bias, Racism and the list goes on. He
delivers his careful and thoughtful solutions with polite, measured, avuncular,
benign and gentle illogicality. Jeremy reminds me of the description applied to
his prophet, Tony Benn, of whom it was said, "He immatures with age."
Icon
PMQs are certainly different with JC. As he read out the latest
e-mails Jeremy had received from Mrs Trellis I was taken aback when I heard him
say, "I asked the Prime Minister this question six times last week and
didn't get an answer". And there it was. It happened. Jeremy before our ears became unmistakeably that
valued national treasure, the angry pensioner in the post office.
War is Wrong
Talking of war as I was, and there's an awful lot of it
about at the moment, I do hope we are spared Saint Jeremy as leader trying to
face down Russia by frantically waving a white flag and shouting, "Don't
attack us. We have no nuclear weapons."
I hope we are spared, full stop.
Here endeth the lesson.
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