David Pavett writes:
Jeremy Corbyn is a mild-mannered, softly-spoken man who expresses himself with reasoned arguments and believes strongly in letting everyone have their say.
So how has this very model of a political gentleman come to be seen by our media as the political equivalent of an angel of death who would make Labour unelectable and who, if ever by some sad misfortune were to become PM, would lead the country to social and economic collapse?
To answer this question it is instructive to look at the outpouring of anti-Corbyn invective from the liberal commentariat.
That the right-wing media has turned on its hostility taps is hardly a surprise. We just have to remember that they considered that Labour had “lurched to the left” under Ed Miliband!
What is far more interesting and instructive is the avalanche of anti-Corbyn articles and editorials from liberal publications like the Guardian and Observer.
Most of the Guardian/Observer writers have gone into overdrive to tell us just how damaging a Corbyn leadership would be.
Journalists like Andrew Rawnsley, Martin Kettle, Jonathan Freedland and Anne Perkins and many others have returned to the theme again and again in order to persuade their readers that a Corbyn victory would be a disaster.
One of the striking features of this hostility is that almost none of it attempts to consider anything that Jeremy Corbyn actually says.
The occasional attempt to do so (e.g. Sonia Sodha in the Observer) produces political nonsense.
She thinks that the irrelevance of his opposition to nuclear weapons is shown by the danger of the so-called Islamic State. Does she want to nuke them?
She also asserts that nationalisation is an irrelevance in the age of Uber. Perhaps she thinks that we should be able to send text messages to order the next train?
Andrew Rawnsley is a respected political journalist who has close links to many of the main players inside the Westminster bubble.
He knows a great deal about the workings of the Labour Party and about the rise of New Labour in particular. His articles are often well-informed, interesting and even witty.
So why is it that he has felt free to write three articles in which he deals with Jeremy Corbyn in a way that one can only describe as uninformed hackery?
In the first article we read “Mr Corbyn seemed to think that he was there to sing the old tunes” that his path to the “promised land” would be a “route to the electoral wilderness” and that the argument that Labour has failed because it is not left enough would be put to the test by a Corbyn victory and would end up in the “destruction that it so richly deserves”.
In the second article he asked why are young party members supporting Corbyn?
His answer is that unlike their elders they were not “seared in the crucible of their party’s near-destruction at the hands of the Bennites”.
Seen through “older eyes … the Corbyn surge is a nightmarish revival of demons that almost murdered Labour as a party of government”.
Corbyn’s approach is “not a road back to power; it is a cul-de-sac at the end of which lies the brick wall of defeat”.
In the third article he speaks darkly of a likely split but adds “to many Labour MPs it is so self-evident that a Corbyn leadership would be a calamity that they can’t see it lasting long”.
His conclusion is that “The big truth that is being exposed by this battle is that Labour is really two parties and they can no longer stand each other’s company” with a strong hint that a Corbyn victory would make a split all but inevitable.
In not one of these articles did Andrew Rawnsley feel it necessary to deal with anything that Jeremy Corbyn actually says.
Ann Perkins has also had three articles in which she tries to dismiss Corbyn.
In the first article we are told that a Jeremy Corbyn leadership would take Labour into the “wilderness” for years. Parties that indulge in the “emotional spasm” are “parties of protest not government”.
Labour Party voters are advised to think what kind of country they want for themselves and their children and then ask “…is Jeremy Corbyn in the middle of that picture? I don’t think so”.
The second article declares “Corbyn is … a decent and honourable man who would unquestionably be a political catastrophe for Labour” and adds pompously and ridiculously “Game theory does not offer a way out of that particular dilemma”.
In the third article we read that Burnham, Cooper and Kendall are conducting campaigns which “are based on the knowledge that there are five years’ hard graft ahead when they must rebuilt the voters’ trust”.
The danger is that Jeremy Corbyn’s appeal appears to rest on challenging them, rather than on looking at challenging the facts.
Again, as with Andrew Rawnsley, there is absolutely no discussion of Jeremy Corbyn’s ideas or policies.
It is as if people like Rawnsley and Perkins felt that Corbyn’s ideas are so toxic that even to discuss them would be dangerous.
Nearly the entire anti-Corbyn onslaught in the liberal press has been argument through reference to such labels such as “hard left”, “extremist”, “far left”, “revival of arguments of the 1980s”, “socialist solutions from a by-gone age”, and so on and so forth.
Andrew Rawnsley managed to top these hand-waving dismissals by writing about “people who think that there is a lot to admire about the thinking of Karl Marx”.
Rawnsley and Perkins are by no means exceptional.
In fact they are in the mainstream of comment in the Guardian/Observer. To detail all the absurdities of this anti-Corbyn campaign would take an article very much longer than this one.
So why the fear? Why the hostility? Aren’t liberals the sort of people who welcome debate, who oppose unfair discrimination and who believe in a vibrant democracy?
The writers in question are in their comfort zone when the arguments are about the manifestations of social inequality, various forms of injustice, and the absurdities of our politicians and political parties.
They can even rail against increasing inequality and social exclusion. But their arguments always remain within the confines of existing society. They do not question the fundamental mechanisms of society.
In short, they accept liberal capitalism as the ultimate point of social evolution. This makes them a part of the social mechanism of that society.
Their analyses and criticisms keep alive the idea that that our society is an expression of the desire of people to be free.
The point is, however, that these same criticisms and analyses have strict limits. They do not allow for a moment the idea that we could move beyond a society based on the search for private gain.
They have fully accepted the view that liberal capitalism both an expression of freedom and the nearest we can have to a guarantee of prosperity.
Any questioning of these concepts undercuts the roots of their liberal world view. And that is why Jeremy Corbyn is so terrifying.
It is not that he proposes an extreme programme. Other countries continue to have nationalised railways and other public utilities, and not only seem to survive, but appear be at least as successful as the UK, if not more so.
It is, therefore, not on the basis of any of Corbyn’s proposals that they denounce him – or when they do, like Sonia Sodha, they just look ridiculous.
It is because Corbyn’s very mild proposals would shift the direction of travel.
They would be the beginning of a reverse of the dismantling of the public realm through neo-liberal dogma now reinforced with austerity arguments.
Even these modest proposals are seen as a major threat because they clearly question the neo-liberal consensus according to which market mechanisms are the best way of optimising social outcomes.
What is worse, far worse, is that Corbyn makes no secret of the fact that he thinks that a different type of society is possible.
He believes that a society not based on the direction of our main economic resources for the purposes of private profit is possible and that we should move in that direction albeit tentatively. He is a socialist.
That is just too much for the liberal commentariat.
Jeremy Corbyn is a mild-mannered, softly-spoken man who expresses himself with reasoned arguments and believes strongly in letting everyone have their say.
So how has this very model of a political gentleman come to be seen by our media as the political equivalent of an angel of death who would make Labour unelectable and who, if ever by some sad misfortune were to become PM, would lead the country to social and economic collapse?
To answer this question it is instructive to look at the outpouring of anti-Corbyn invective from the liberal commentariat.
That the right-wing media has turned on its hostility taps is hardly a surprise. We just have to remember that they considered that Labour had “lurched to the left” under Ed Miliband!
What is far more interesting and instructive is the avalanche of anti-Corbyn articles and editorials from liberal publications like the Guardian and Observer.
Most of the Guardian/Observer writers have gone into overdrive to tell us just how damaging a Corbyn leadership would be.
Journalists like Andrew Rawnsley, Martin Kettle, Jonathan Freedland and Anne Perkins and many others have returned to the theme again and again in order to persuade their readers that a Corbyn victory would be a disaster.
One of the striking features of this hostility is that almost none of it attempts to consider anything that Jeremy Corbyn actually says.
The occasional attempt to do so (e.g. Sonia Sodha in the Observer) produces political nonsense.
She thinks that the irrelevance of his opposition to nuclear weapons is shown by the danger of the so-called Islamic State. Does she want to nuke them?
She also asserts that nationalisation is an irrelevance in the age of Uber. Perhaps she thinks that we should be able to send text messages to order the next train?
Andrew Rawnsley is a respected political journalist who has close links to many of the main players inside the Westminster bubble.
He knows a great deal about the workings of the Labour Party and about the rise of New Labour in particular. His articles are often well-informed, interesting and even witty.
So why is it that he has felt free to write three articles in which he deals with Jeremy Corbyn in a way that one can only describe as uninformed hackery?
In the first article we read “Mr Corbyn seemed to think that he was there to sing the old tunes” that his path to the “promised land” would be a “route to the electoral wilderness” and that the argument that Labour has failed because it is not left enough would be put to the test by a Corbyn victory and would end up in the “destruction that it so richly deserves”.
In the second article he asked why are young party members supporting Corbyn?
His answer is that unlike their elders they were not “seared in the crucible of their party’s near-destruction at the hands of the Bennites”.
Seen through “older eyes … the Corbyn surge is a nightmarish revival of demons that almost murdered Labour as a party of government”.
Corbyn’s approach is “not a road back to power; it is a cul-de-sac at the end of which lies the brick wall of defeat”.
In the third article he speaks darkly of a likely split but adds “to many Labour MPs it is so self-evident that a Corbyn leadership would be a calamity that they can’t see it lasting long”.
His conclusion is that “The big truth that is being exposed by this battle is that Labour is really two parties and they can no longer stand each other’s company” with a strong hint that a Corbyn victory would make a split all but inevitable.
In not one of these articles did Andrew Rawnsley feel it necessary to deal with anything that Jeremy Corbyn actually says.
Ann Perkins has also had three articles in which she tries to dismiss Corbyn.
In the first article we are told that a Jeremy Corbyn leadership would take Labour into the “wilderness” for years. Parties that indulge in the “emotional spasm” are “parties of protest not government”.
Labour Party voters are advised to think what kind of country they want for themselves and their children and then ask “…is Jeremy Corbyn in the middle of that picture? I don’t think so”.
The second article declares “Corbyn is … a decent and honourable man who would unquestionably be a political catastrophe for Labour” and adds pompously and ridiculously “Game theory does not offer a way out of that particular dilemma”.
In the third article we read that Burnham, Cooper and Kendall are conducting campaigns which “are based on the knowledge that there are five years’ hard graft ahead when they must rebuilt the voters’ trust”.
The danger is that Jeremy Corbyn’s appeal appears to rest on challenging them, rather than on looking at challenging the facts.
Again, as with Andrew Rawnsley, there is absolutely no discussion of Jeremy Corbyn’s ideas or policies.
It is as if people like Rawnsley and Perkins felt that Corbyn’s ideas are so toxic that even to discuss them would be dangerous.
Nearly the entire anti-Corbyn onslaught in the liberal press has been argument through reference to such labels such as “hard left”, “extremist”, “far left”, “revival of arguments of the 1980s”, “socialist solutions from a by-gone age”, and so on and so forth.
Andrew Rawnsley managed to top these hand-waving dismissals by writing about “people who think that there is a lot to admire about the thinking of Karl Marx”.
Rawnsley and Perkins are by no means exceptional.
In fact they are in the mainstream of comment in the Guardian/Observer. To detail all the absurdities of this anti-Corbyn campaign would take an article very much longer than this one.
So why the fear? Why the hostility? Aren’t liberals the sort of people who welcome debate, who oppose unfair discrimination and who believe in a vibrant democracy?
The writers in question are in their comfort zone when the arguments are about the manifestations of social inequality, various forms of injustice, and the absurdities of our politicians and political parties.
They can even rail against increasing inequality and social exclusion. But their arguments always remain within the confines of existing society. They do not question the fundamental mechanisms of society.
In short, they accept liberal capitalism as the ultimate point of social evolution. This makes them a part of the social mechanism of that society.
Their analyses and criticisms keep alive the idea that that our society is an expression of the desire of people to be free.
The point is, however, that these same criticisms and analyses have strict limits. They do not allow for a moment the idea that we could move beyond a society based on the search for private gain.
They have fully accepted the view that liberal capitalism both an expression of freedom and the nearest we can have to a guarantee of prosperity.
Any questioning of these concepts undercuts the roots of their liberal world view. And that is why Jeremy Corbyn is so terrifying.
It is not that he proposes an extreme programme. Other countries continue to have nationalised railways and other public utilities, and not only seem to survive, but appear be at least as successful as the UK, if not more so.
It is, therefore, not on the basis of any of Corbyn’s proposals that they denounce him – or when they do, like Sonia Sodha, they just look ridiculous.
It is because Corbyn’s very mild proposals would shift the direction of travel.
They would be the beginning of a reverse of the dismantling of the public realm through neo-liberal dogma now reinforced with austerity arguments.
Even these modest proposals are seen as a major threat because they clearly question the neo-liberal consensus according to which market mechanisms are the best way of optimising social outcomes.
What is worse, far worse, is that Corbyn makes no secret of the fact that he thinks that a different type of society is possible.
He believes that a society not based on the direction of our main economic resources for the purposes of private profit is possible and that we should move in that direction albeit tentatively. He is a socialist.
That is just too much for the liberal commentariat.
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