Friday 6 November 2020

And How They Get Away With It?

The Guardian has cut Owen Jones's YouTube channel, meaning that he has had to launch his own as a subscription service, and strongly suggesting that he will soon lose his column. He is just a blogger like the rest of us now. I enjoy being one. But I have never been a broadsheet columnist who got on Question Time. To have not only had that, but lost it at 36? Imagine. He is about to learn that he should have been nicer to people on the way up, because he is going to meet us all again on the way back down.

Six years ago, if any event were addressed by Owen Jones, then he himself was the event. But he then joined the long list of old "left-wing" star turns who resented having been made into supporting acts by a man whom they had spent decades assuming to be the cloakroom attendant, yet who did for a time turn out to have a popular appeal beyond their wildest dreams. 

It was downright spooky that, when a Corbyn-led Labour Party could have 600,000 members and 40 per cent of the vote, Jones's was still the only "left-wing" voice allowed on the airwaves. Yet look at him now. No doubt the spooks will still look after him, since he played a key role in sabotaging the Corbyn project. But he had better forget about the limelight, never mind about one day being Leader of the Labour Party.

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