Car-crash interview shows Corbyn is totally unfit for PM
THE wheels are coming off the Labour campaign.This election was meant to be dominated by Brexit, but it is fast turning into a referendum on Jeremy Corbyn’s spectacular unfitness for office. With a fortnight left before polls open, his Magic Grandpa act has been increasingly exposed as an ugly illusion.
Labour was already in serious trouble before this week. Trailing far behind the Conservatives in the opinion polls, the party tried to win back support through the launch of a fiscally incontinent manifesto, packed with extravagant spending pledges. But the profligate document only reinforced severe doubts about Labour’s economic credibility.
Now the party has plumbed to a humiliating new low point, thanks to Corbyn’s disastrous encounter on Tuesday night with the BBC’s master inquisitor Andrew Neil. Even by the Labour leader’s own desperate standards, this probably repre- sented the worst interview of his career, savagely revealing his lack of empathy, authority, knowledge, decisiveness and integrity. His performance was even more shambolic and embarrassing than the notorious one given during the 2017 general election by his shadow home secretary Diane Abbott, when she hopelessly muddled her figures on the costs of police recruitment.
The clash between Neil and Corbyn could mark a key turning point in this election, with Labour beginning to haemorrhage its traditional voters. Even Corbyn’s own zealous supporters admitted on social media that the interview was “truly horrific”.
ILL-INFORMED and peevish, instead of answering Neil’s questions with clarity, he either sighed or mouthed his hollow Left-wing slogans about inequality and justice. That might work at a rally with his fellow deluded socialists but it does not wash with the British viewing public.
On every front, he struggled badly. After the ferocious condemnation of Labour earlier in the day by the Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, Corbyn refused no fewer than four times to apologise for allowing the poison of anti-Semitism to spread through his party.At one stage, his enfeebled response on this issue was so defensive that he became incomprehensible. “I don’t want anyone to go through what anyone has gone through,” he said.
He was just as unconvincing about Labour’s new policy to dish out massive amounts of compensation to so-called “WASPI” women, who believe they have been ill-treated by the decisions of successive governments since 1993 to equalise the age of eligibility for the state pension. Corbyn kept repeating that the women had a
“moral” case for the money, a dubious enough claim, but he miserably failed to explain how he planned to meet the colossal cost, which is estimated to be £58billion, far more than the entire defence budget.
That failure was indicative of his frightening inability to grasp the basics of public finance. He seemed to know little about tax rates, government bonds or contingency reserves. He was as ignorant about the married couples allowance as he was about the revenues from income tax levied on the rich.
Just as worrying is his duplicitous stance on Brexit, where he absurdly told Neil that he would not campaign in a new referendum for any deal that he might negotiate with Brussels.When it comes to British independence, he will just pathetically sit on the fence. This is an appalling abdication of responsibility. How could the EU hold any serious talks with a leader who refuses to back his own agreement? What Corbyn describes as neutrality is actually epic cowardice. The idea of this risible figure as prime minister is terrifying.
NEVER in our history has there been a leader of the opposition less equipped for Downing Street. He is a threat both to the public finances and national security.When Neil pressed him as to whether he would order the killing of an IS leader by British special forces, he again refused to answer. Yet this is the man who aspires to take charge of our national defences.
Almost as sickening is how Labour moderates collude with it. From experience of working with this Marxist mediocrity, these candidates know that he would be a disaster in government, yet they are all campaigning hard for him. It is the height of political hypocrisy.
Yesterday Corbyn was blathering about the NHS, the comfort blanket that Labour always uses in times of crisis. But the damage has now been done. Neither Corbyn’s hard-Left dogma nor his petulant character stand up to scrutiny.
‘The party has now plumbed a humiliating, new low point’