There’s a place for comedy in politics but Corbyn and Labour have now become a joke. And it’s just not funny any more
IS IT TIME FOR A NEW LEFT-LEANING PARTY?
Politics and humour are never far apart.
Figures like Charles Kennedy showed that you could be a political leader and still make gags.
But in the case of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour, the comedy has overtaken the political content and the party feel like an endless punchline.
By the end of the week, Corbyn will be announced as the continuing leader of Labour, if the polls are to be trusted.
He will romp home and the nation will rejoice, knowing things can only get dafter from that point on.
A political party in which the leader and the members are at odds with most of the elected MPs seems comical.
Some will cry, of course, for the ruination of a political movement.
That Labour have become a joke in Scotland is no laughing matter.
It is a great tragedy, as we urgently need a left-leaning party ready to challenge the economic consensus.
It’s hard to trust a man who wears socks with sandals and who relies on Diane Abbott for advice, and therefore easy to dismiss the accidental candidate who ended up as leader, but thousands of sensible people sincerely believe in Corbyn. He will have won because he is popular.
Politics doesn’t require you to be an animated mannequin – that’s just how most politicians end up, as the challenger Owen Smith neatly proves.
The contest between them has focused on a single idea – what does it take to win a UK general election?
In fairness, it ’ s a much more complicated question than meets the eye. Labour may never win another election because, without 50 or so Scottish seats, the numbers game is against them.
Because of this, it’s as good a time as any to rethink what the party stand for, something which Corbyn is doing.
He embodies a different approach – of having principles and trying to persuade other people to your way of thinking. People like it. Across the western world, voters are tired of the self-lubricating politics of the last few decades.
They don’t much like a system which seems to protect its own, how politicians have become servants of businessmen.
Nor do they care for Labour MPs who are but a rosette shade away from their Tory colleagues.
We have had decades of efficient politics precision-cut to appeal to our wants but lousy leadership addressing our needs.
It is evident to most of us that globalisation has been a mixed bag and needs to be corrected in favour of the many.
Most of us rightly puzzle that a rich world can’t afford basic services. We ask why a billionaire can rip off a pension fund of £ 500million and live in comfort in Monaco but the pensioner who goes poor is expected to work into their 70s.
And Corbyn appears to get this – like the wandering monk at the door of the palace, he seems to be asking why the powerful are so rich and the people so poor. I say seems because, in truth, it’s not entirely clear what Corbyn wants. There are Ann Summers shops with more material than the Labour policy book.
He has an oppositional frame of mind and liking for the radical but within a year of leadership has produced nothing resembling a coherent critique of Britain or modern capitalism.
Without that, Labour can never flourish again, whether it’s Corbyn, Smith or the reincarnation of Keir Hardie leading the party.
Corbyn is a good thing (for driving a debate about how things could be dif ferent) but the wrong man ( he doesn’t have the vision to be the difference he wants). So the farce shades into tragedy.
But in the decay comes new opportunities. In Scotland our politics are stuck with the Old Firm of Indy versus Union, SNP versus Tory.
This isn’t the most important divide in society – that’s the age- old fight between rich and poor. The real problem of Scotland is the damage we do to our people by letting them live in poverty.
Which is why Scotland desperately needs a functioning Labour movement true to their Scottish roots in fighting for a fair settlement in society.
Perhaps it’s time for Scottish politics to respond to people’s anger with globalisation and poverty by creating a new political party?
Shortly before his death, Charles Kennedy texted Alastair Campbell to say: “Fancy starting a new Scottish left-leaning party? I joke not.”
It is still no joke that the poor have no champions. With the UK Labour Party set for implosion once Corbyn is returned, the time seems right for the left in Scotland to start afresh, offer a real alternative to the economic consensus and speak for the people globalisation left behind.
A Kennedy Party, anyone?