Day 94 of the Labour leadership coup...
We are into the fifth day of the Labour leadership coup. Last night we were told it was absolutely certain that Angela Eagle would launch her challenge today. We're still waiting. In much the same style as on transfer deadline day, political journalists look to be reporting whatever rumour they hear as fact. Jeremy Corbyn has been about to resign every hour on the hour for days. Corbyn is meant both to have been talked into resigning by his advisers and persuaded not to by the same advisers. I recall much mirth back in January over the "revenge reshuffle"' taking over 2 days, when the truth was no one had any clue what was going on primarily because they were reporting on what was happening on Twitter instead of actually talking to anyone. Strangely, the same journalists so amused and critical back then have had little hostile comment to pass on their sources' lamentable failure to wield the knife a mere 6 months later.
While Labour is set on killing Corbyn via death by 1000 cuts using butter knives, the Tories by contrast know a thing or two about stabbing their leaders straight through the heart. Not that arch assassin Michael Gove ought to have felled Boris Johnson by announcing his own rival bid, or at least it wouldn't have done had Johnson got any cojones. Who knew that Boris would run for cover as soon as he was challenged? Well, err, everyone should have: it's always been the Boris way. Johnson's idiot act has worked so long as everyone has treated him as a figure of fun rather than an opponent to be dealt with the same as everyone else. Confronted by a journalist or opponent who won't back down, his lack of spine quickly becomes evident and he runs for cover.
If you wanted to somehow put the best and at the same time the worst gloss on it, then Boris has been rather clever. We already knew he had wanted to take over as leader in an orderly fashion, instead of picking up the pieces having forced Cameron's resignation by mistake. Succeeded in breaking Britain, would it ever have been the Boris way to do the decent thing? Of course not. Boris has always been the egomaniac opportunist rather than the grand Machiavellian schemer.
That at the same time this has rendered almost the entire Leave campaign utterly pointless, as the whole point of Johnson hedging his bets to the last minute was about what was most likely to deliver him the Tory party leadership is by the by. Or at least it is to him. To the rest of us, the sheer preening, incredible self-obsession and putting of self before country blows the mind. It really has been all a game. He opened what everyone expected to be his leadership declaration by once again claiming that everything was coming up roses, the collapse of the pound and the routs on the FTSE 250 and 350 clearly our imagination. That a few hours later Mark Carney gave a rather more realistic economic outlook, making clear he feels the need for a stimulus to stop the economy sinking as a result of Leave, just sums up his unconscionable recklessness.
Then we have our non-fictional Macbeth, with wife following in his bloody wake. Yesterday an email from Sarah Vine was "accidentally leaked" to a member of the public. Said email just happened to set out exactly why Johnson was not to be trusted without the equivalent of a deal written in claret. Lo and behold, the following morning Gove emails hacks setting out why Johnson is not to be trusted and can't possibly be a leader. Attracted by his raw animal magnetism, intellectual heft and God only knows what other qualities they see in the speccy twit only liked by others with a similarly warped mindset and values, most of Johnson's supporters immediately changed sides.
If I were feeling charitable, which I'm not, I could say Gove does have an attractive line of thought on social liberalism, as he has put right many of the mistakes Chris Grayling made as justice minister. Only he combines it with the absolute worst instincts of the "muscular liberals", a visceral loathing of what he and other Blairites, as that's essentially what Gove is, see as "vested interests", whether those interests be teachers, doctors etc, and again just like the Blairites, the complete certainty that he is always right, a certainty enforced by attack dogs like Dominic Cummings, the kind of man who makes Alastair Campbell look like a Andrex puppy. Gove is held in high esteem only by the like minded, whether they be journalists, those with a lofty opinion of themselves, or newspaper proprietors. Boris Johnson might be sexually incontinent, completely untrustworthy and regard integrity as for wimps, but he's not a shit. Gove is a shit.
He's also a shit who had the most destructive of all the Leave plans during the campaign. Gove's position was for the UK to leave the single market entirely, a policy that it seemed Vote Leave as a whole had adopted towards the end. Boris's Telegraph article, which according to more than one source Gove is meant to have sub-edited (since confirmed by the email being leaked to Robert Peston) only to then decide its vagueness and unreality was one of the reasons why he couldn't go along with the deal, suggested the opposite. Which is it going to be? Only the most Panglossian of the Leave optimists really think regressing to WTO trade rules is a good idea. Business, already smarting from the Leave vote, will surely regard such a position if he keeps to it with unabashed horror.
Not that they will have found much to cheer from Theresa May's leadership launch either. She like Cameron kept open the prospect that European migrants could be asked to leave, no doubt as part of her proclaimed commitment to "serious social reform".
Today ought to have been a day to cheer Labour. The man Dominic Raab described this morning in the Sun as having the "Heineken effect", only to decide hours later Gove was a better bet, is out of the race. A Labour party not caught up in a clusterfuck only slightly less wasteful than the battle of the Somme ought to fancy its chances against a High Tory out of touch with life itself, let alone the public, or a colder than ice politician capable only of warming Conservative hearts.
And yet what was Labour spending the day doing? Apart from still skulking about trying to find someone, anyone to stand against Corbyn, there was the publication of the report by Shami Chakrabati into whether the party is riddled with antisemites. Chakrabati predictably and rightly decided it isn't, although it also shouldn't be in the slightest bit complacent. What though was the media takeaway? That Corbyn had "appeared" to compare Israel to Islamic State. In fact, it turned out he had been misquoted, and said just as Jews should not be equated with Israel or the government of, so Muslims shouldn't be with Islamic States, plural, or groups. A Labour MP at the event, Ruth Smeeth, also reacted badly to being snubbed by a Momentum campaigner, subsequently resigned, and demanded to know why Corbyn hadn't condemned him for suggesting the MP was in it together with a Telegraph reporter.
As a demonstration of how Corbyn can't possibly win when the media so wilfully misreports his words, with social media guaranteeing that the initial impression will be the one reacted to, there couldn't be a more instructive one. When members of his own party are determined to take offence and make use of the slightest excuse given, it's hard to think it was ever going to end any other way. Flying Rodent's comic take on the past nine months is all the more depressing for how close to reality it is. The last week has been one long demonstration of what happens when personal ambition and the interests of the few are put above everything else: absolute fucking disaster.
While Labour is set on killing Corbyn via death by 1000 cuts using butter knives, the Tories by contrast know a thing or two about stabbing their leaders straight through the heart. Not that arch assassin Michael Gove ought to have felled Boris Johnson by announcing his own rival bid, or at least it wouldn't have done had Johnson got any cojones. Who knew that Boris would run for cover as soon as he was challenged? Well, err, everyone should have: it's always been the Boris way. Johnson's idiot act has worked so long as everyone has treated him as a figure of fun rather than an opponent to be dealt with the same as everyone else. Confronted by a journalist or opponent who won't back down, his lack of spine quickly becomes evident and he runs for cover.
If you wanted to somehow put the best and at the same time the worst gloss on it, then Boris has been rather clever. We already knew he had wanted to take over as leader in an orderly fashion, instead of picking up the pieces having forced Cameron's resignation by mistake. Succeeded in breaking Britain, would it ever have been the Boris way to do the decent thing? Of course not. Boris has always been the egomaniac opportunist rather than the grand Machiavellian schemer.
That at the same time this has rendered almost the entire Leave campaign utterly pointless, as the whole point of Johnson hedging his bets to the last minute was about what was most likely to deliver him the Tory party leadership is by the by. Or at least it is to him. To the rest of us, the sheer preening, incredible self-obsession and putting of self before country blows the mind. It really has been all a game. He opened what everyone expected to be his leadership declaration by once again claiming that everything was coming up roses, the collapse of the pound and the routs on the FTSE 250 and 350 clearly our imagination. That a few hours later Mark Carney gave a rather more realistic economic outlook, making clear he feels the need for a stimulus to stop the economy sinking as a result of Leave, just sums up his unconscionable recklessness.
Then we have our non-fictional Macbeth, with wife following in his bloody wake. Yesterday an email from Sarah Vine was "accidentally leaked" to a member of the public. Said email just happened to set out exactly why Johnson was not to be trusted without the equivalent of a deal written in claret. Lo and behold, the following morning Gove emails hacks setting out why Johnson is not to be trusted and can't possibly be a leader. Attracted by his raw animal magnetism, intellectual heft and God only knows what other qualities they see in the speccy twit only liked by others with a similarly warped mindset and values, most of Johnson's supporters immediately changed sides.
If I were feeling charitable, which I'm not, I could say Gove does have an attractive line of thought on social liberalism, as he has put right many of the mistakes Chris Grayling made as justice minister. Only he combines it with the absolute worst instincts of the "muscular liberals", a visceral loathing of what he and other Blairites, as that's essentially what Gove is, see as "vested interests", whether those interests be teachers, doctors etc, and again just like the Blairites, the complete certainty that he is always right, a certainty enforced by attack dogs like Dominic Cummings, the kind of man who makes Alastair Campbell look like a Andrex puppy. Gove is held in high esteem only by the like minded, whether they be journalists, those with a lofty opinion of themselves, or newspaper proprietors. Boris Johnson might be sexually incontinent, completely untrustworthy and regard integrity as for wimps, but he's not a shit. Gove is a shit.
He's also a shit who had the most destructive of all the Leave plans during the campaign. Gove's position was for the UK to leave the single market entirely, a policy that it seemed Vote Leave as a whole had adopted towards the end. Boris's Telegraph article, which according to more than one source Gove is meant to have sub-edited (since confirmed by the email being leaked to Robert Peston) only to then decide its vagueness and unreality was one of the reasons why he couldn't go along with the deal, suggested the opposite. Which is it going to be? Only the most Panglossian of the Leave optimists really think regressing to WTO trade rules is a good idea. Business, already smarting from the Leave vote, will surely regard such a position if he keeps to it with unabashed horror.
Not that they will have found much to cheer from Theresa May's leadership launch either. She like Cameron kept open the prospect that European migrants could be asked to leave, no doubt as part of her proclaimed commitment to "serious social reform".
Today ought to have been a day to cheer Labour. The man Dominic Raab described this morning in the Sun as having the "Heineken effect", only to decide hours later Gove was a better bet, is out of the race. A Labour party not caught up in a clusterfuck only slightly less wasteful than the battle of the Somme ought to fancy its chances against a High Tory out of touch with life itself, let alone the public, or a colder than ice politician capable only of warming Conservative hearts.
And yet what was Labour spending the day doing? Apart from still skulking about trying to find someone, anyone to stand against Corbyn, there was the publication of the report by Shami Chakrabati into whether the party is riddled with antisemites. Chakrabati predictably and rightly decided it isn't, although it also shouldn't be in the slightest bit complacent. What though was the media takeaway? That Corbyn had "appeared" to compare Israel to Islamic State. In fact, it turned out he had been misquoted, and said just as Jews should not be equated with Israel or the government of, so Muslims shouldn't be with Islamic States, plural, or groups. A Labour MP at the event, Ruth Smeeth, also reacted badly to being snubbed by a Momentum campaigner, subsequently resigned, and demanded to know why Corbyn hadn't condemned him for suggesting the MP was in it together with a Telegraph reporter.
As a demonstration of how Corbyn can't possibly win when the media so wilfully misreports his words, with social media guaranteeing that the initial impression will be the one reacted to, there couldn't be a more instructive one. When members of his own party are determined to take offence and make use of the slightest excuse given, it's hard to think it was ever going to end any other way. Flying Rodent's comic take on the past nine months is all the more depressing for how close to reality it is. The last week has been one long demonstration of what happens when personal ambition and the interests of the few are put above everything else: absolute fucking disaster.
Labels: Angela Eagle, Boris Johnson, David Cameron, EU referendum, Jeremy Corbyn, Labour, Michael Gove, politics, stupidity
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