Inside Camp Corbyn
Jeremy took the Pyramid Stage with a protest poem, Tom Watson ditched his suit and even Ed
Scene One
Worthy Farm, April 4. Michael Eavis and his daughter Emily are in the kitchen, Emily dandling her third child on her knee.
So we’ve got Radiohead, Foo Fighters, Katy Perry, Barry Gibb and Ed Sheeran as part of a perfect spread for ordinary, young, working-class music fans who can afford £238 for a ticket plus the cost of transport, organic falafel, reiki sessions, spare toilet rolls and the glamping tent they’ll just abandon…
(stroking strange beard) Great, great, but I feel there’s something missing… it’s the 47th Glastonbury, we’re not doing it in 2018, and relocating in 2019. We should do something totally nuts and unexpected!
Enter Billy Bragg.
Great news! I’ve asked Jeremy Corbyn to appear on the Pyramid stage on behalf of CND!
A beardy, has-been Seventies throwback at Glastonbury? As well as Barry Gibb? I like it! But a politician at Glastonbury…?
Actually, Dad, Ed Balls, Yvette Cooper and Tom Watson are all coming too: their people have asked if they can be in the muddiest field, as far away from the showers as possible, in case they get papped.
(sadly) They probably want a break from the forthcoming months of Labour infighting and schisms, possibly leading to the implosion of the party I love. After all, there’s not going to be a general election or anything…
Scene Two
Worthy Farm, April 18. The Eavises and Billy Bragg are watching Theresa May announce the snap election.
Holy sh*t!!!
Scene Three
The small hours of June 9. A split screen shows Jeremy Corbyn, Tom Watson, and Yvette Cooper and Ed Balls as the election results come in.
Holy sh*t!!!
Scene Four
Saturday, June 23. Katy Perry sings “I kissed a girl…” and holds out her microphone to the audience, who respond “Oooh, Je-re-my Cor-byn”. Meanwhile, Corbyn and John McDonnell are in the wings of the Pyramid stage discussing Corbyn’s set-list.
A strong statement about Tri-
dent?
NO!
A point-by-point rebuttal of accusations that L abour is antiSemitic?
NO!
A detailed and careful explanation of my personal position on Brexit?
Jesus Christ, NO!!!
Well, apart from the jam recipe, that just leaves me with poetic quotations adapted to fit my political agenda. How about “I wandered lonely as a radical socialist candidate in a centrist party…”
Too personal…
“May is the cruellest month…?”
Too obscure...
Shelley’s “Ye are many, they are few”?
Bingo! You’re on!
Corbyn onto stage).
(stumbling onstage) Hello Glastonbury! Are you ready to make some noise!?! And are you ready to work with me to build a fairer society than the one that the neo-liberal elites have erected to favour the richest one per cent and renationalise the railways and the utility companies and by the way change policy in the Middle East and while we are talking about Northern Ireland… (Continues for 15 minutes to shouts of “Yes!” “Maybe!” “Whatever!” “God, Pandora, I’m toootally out of it!” “Smash the cistern!” “Smash the Portaloos!” “When’s Stormzy on?” “Yah, I’m totally going to canvass for Labour when I get back from my gap yah in Bali before uni” etc…)
Scene Five
(pushes
John McDonnell watches from the wings and monitors TV coverage.
Outrageous! The Tory mainstream BBC is only reporting that Comrade Jez drew a bigger crowd than Radiohead, rather than reporting this as the biggest political gathering since Tiananmen Square.
Scene Six
Nigel Farage is watching Corbyn’s appearance in his bachelor flat.
Outrageous! How dare the commie Remainiac BBC devote so much airtime to the Stalinist rantings of the leader of the second-largest party in the Commons, when an unelected demagogue like me has only been on Question Time 37 times in the past year!!
Scene Seven
Ken Livingstone and his wife are watching Corbyn’s appearance in their Kilburn living room.
You know who else had this kind of charisma at large rallies… Hitl…
DON’T SAY IT!! … actually, it was Lenin.
Scene Eight
The Cabinet Room at 10 Downing Street, aka “the bunker”: Corbyn’s speech is playing on a muted television. Theresa May is pacing angrily up and down. Philip Hammond, Andrea Leadsom, David Davis and Boris Johnson are all looking at the ceiling.
What is this “Gladstone-bury” festival? Why was I not informed about it? Who are Michael and Emily Eavis? The Axis of Eavis? Why was I sent on The One Show to talk about boy jobs and girl jobs by my stupid and now tot ally discredited advisers Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill instead of (reads from card) “dubbing some sick beats with Frank Ocean at Lovebox”, which my new advisers tell me is a totally groovy thing to say which will help me connect with those people who look a bit like my constituents only 40 years younger and a good deal scruffier? (Turns and glares at Leadsom).