Keep Corbyn out of Downing Street for all our sakes
PLEASE forgive me for ruining your Christmas but here’s a thought to put the dampeners on any festivities: Jeremy Corbyn says he’ll be prime minister next year. Speaking to the women’s magazine Grazia, the Labour leader said: “There will probably be another election in the next 12 months” and he “will probably win”.
It’s only fair I give you some comfort after dumping that on you. And it’s this: Mr Corbyn doesn’t have the greatest track record with such predictions.
In June this year, speaking backstage before his appearance at the Glastonbury festival, he reportedly said that he’d be PM within six months. That’s… now. And unless something very dramatic has happened between my writing this and you reading it, he isn’t.
But while it’s easy – and comforting – to dismiss this latest prediction of power by Corbyn, it would be a grave mistake.
I was guilty of making a similar mistake in June when I thought it simply impossible that the British public would ever give a terrorist-hugging hard-Left economy-wrecking extremist the time of day. But I was plain wrong because 12.8 million of our fellow countrymen and women – that’s 40 per cent of all votes cast – did just that.
THE big question is this: was that 40 per cent for Corbyn’s Labour a floor or a ceiling? In other words, did Labour’s support under its extremist leadership peak at 40 per cent because of the unique circumstances of the election? Or will more voters move to Labour next time, now it’s clear that Mr Corbyn cannot be dismissed as unelectable? The truth is that no one knows.
My instinct tells me that it’s the former because we Brits will have no truck with extremism. But my instinct could hardly have been more wrong in June – so it’s clearly no guide at all.
The only sensible approach is not to regard Labour as unelectable under Mr Corbyn but to see the prospect of him entering Number 10 as all too real.
That means that the Government has to up its game next year. That’s putting it mildly. It has to find ways to convince