Once voters got to see Corbyn the man, many liked him & his policies.. that wasn’t in the script for his Tory or Labour critics
IT WAS the general election that many expected but few in a nation suffering from extreme voting-fatigue wanted.
An election that was seen as a cynical smashand-grab act by the Tories to crush a weak, divided Labour opposition and strengthen their Hard Brexit hand.
But it turned out to be an election campaign the likes of which we’d never seen before. And the notion that Labour would be crushed turned out to be a myth.
Never has one been halted, not once but twice, by murderous terror attacks which shifted the entire narrative. Before the Manchester bomb it was all about the “Dementia Tax”, but afterwards debate shifted to the war on terror.
Then came the London Bridge outrage and it was all about police numbers. Or lack of them.
In no other election has a party leader abandoned a manifesto pledge way before a vote was cast as Theresa May did when she announced, days after saying there would be no cap on elderly care costs, that there would.
And not for 30 years have we witnessed an election in which it was impossible to trot out the old saying that “there’s nothing to choose between them as they’re all the bloody same”. Because this time there was. A Labour Party which, rather than water down Tory policies to attract the centre ground, went back to its socialist roots and offered nationalisation, massive investment in public services, a big hike in the minimum wage, taxing the rich and the scrapping of tuition fees.
And a Conservative Party that was extremely conservative in its offer to the people. As in, it offered to change very little, believing voters were happy with five more years of austerity so long as they had a “strong and stable” leader who would get the best Brexit deal. Or no deal at all.
Leaving the EU was why May claimed she was “reluctantly”
calling the elec- tion back in April, saying the election was “in the national interest” as it could give her a clear mandate for her Brexit plans. Even though she had said six times previously that she would not call a snap poll. And even though she never once laid out her plans for Brexit in the campaign. Quizzed on the subject, she’d ask: “Who would you rather have leading the negotiations with Brussels, me or Jeremy Corbyn?” It was her stock reply. When she got close enough to journalists to answer questions she gave no answers, but said the British people had a stark choice. “Strong and stable” leadership with her, or a “coalition of chaos” under Corbyn, the SNP and Lib Dems. At first, the woman in killer heels was seen by Tory strategists as their killer weapon. She was on all the manifesto material and was the only senior Tory put up for set-piece rallies and media interviews.
Not that there were many, as she turned down virtually all broadcasting requests, including live televised leaders’ debates, the final one with the excuse she was working on her Brexit strategy. Asked what that was, she wouldn’t answer.
It changed the perception of a PM we didn’t really know. She had been give the benefit of the doubt when her only answer to questions about how we would leave the EU was, “Brexit means Brexit”. She was playing poker with Brussels, keeping her cards close to her chest. But no, this was how she answered every question. As in, she didn’t. She just stonewalled with cliches.
The only two pieces of information anyone managed to draw was that the naughtiest thing she has ever done was run through wheat fields and that her husband Philip puts the bins out.
So dull were her performances she earned the nickname Maybot. So dreadful was her manifesto she did a U-turn on the Dementia Tax and lost support among the elderly with pledges to drop the triple-lock on pensions and means test the Winter Fuel Allowance.
George Osborne, in his new role as editor of the London Evening Standard, labelled it “the most disastrous manifesto in recent history”.
Tory high command downgraded May’s presidential role to team leader, although no one in her team, barring Amber Rudd, was anywhere to be seen, with Philip Hammond, Liam Fox and Jeremy Hunt going AWOL.
It wasn’t just May’s impression of a short-circuiting Dalek that caused panic among Tories. It was Labour running a far more effective campaign than anyone expected. The reason was purely and simply down to Jeremy Corbyn, who was everything May was not. Genuine, passionate, relaxed, unscripted, witty and, most of all, human.
Which came across best in a live interview with Jeremy Paxman when the arch-inquisitor set out to make the Labour leader look like a chippy, unhinged ranter from a bygone age, but ended up looking like that himself. Corbyn had been painted as a dinosaur with no message for the modern age.
Yet to the young generation, modern was how he appeared. It was why he packed out rallies across the country. Once the voters got to see Corbyn the man, not the myth, many liked him and his policies. For both his Tory and Labour critics, this was not in the script.
The Lib Dems made little impact. Tim Farron thought his pledge of a second Brexit referendum would score highly among the 48% Remainers. It didn’t. UKIP disappeared back from whence they came: The Tory Party. But it is May’s mediocrity, deceit and opportunism that will be remembered most. She talked of Labour’s “magic money tree” when they had costed all their manifesto pledges, and she had costed none (apart from 6.8p per child for free primary school breakfasts).
She lied about the deficit, NHS funding, police numbers and immigration figures. She agreed to call off campaigning the day after the London terror attacks, then gave a party political speech saying “enough is enough”. She vowed to rip up the Human Rights Act days before polling without stating how that would prevent terror attacks. Meaning, at the end of a campaign May hoped would be her coronation, the crown would probably never be hers.
Corbyn was everything that May was not: genuine, witty, relaxed ..and human BRIAN READE ON LABOUR LEADER’S POPULARITY SURGE