Corbyn could be this generation’s Thatcher
Labour’s policies are disastrous but voters want a change from the failed centrist consensus
Successful political leaders come in many forms, but there is one characteristic they all share; invariably, they promise change, hope and some plausible possibility of both improved living standards and restored national pride.
Often they fall short. The Blair years ended in the catastrophe of the financial crisis, making a mockery of New Labour’s campaigning message – “Things can only get better”. Just occasionally, however, someone comes along who does rise above the mediocrity of the centre ground to bring about genuine change. Perhaps the most remarkable example in the post war era was Margaret Thatcher.
Yet it was less the commitment to free market reform that spurred her to victory in 1979 than something far more powerful; a simple yearning among voters for alternative solutions. Both economically and geopolitically, Britain was slipping into the sea; self-evidently something had to change. Thatcher promised at least the possibility of salvation; James Callaghan only more of the same.
For me and others of my age, the 1970s were our formative decade, the years in which we moved from school – via university for a then minority of us – and into the job market. The parallels between then and now are striking. True enough, the economic scourges of that time – over-mighty unions, incompetent management, rampant inflation and crushing levels of unemployment – have largely been eradicated. But only to be replaced by a different and more pervasive kind of misery: stagnant living standards and a sense of economic progress going into reverse. Union power has been substantially broken: its place has been taken by seemingly irresponsible finance, globalism and the unaccountable, tax-avoiding multinational.
It has become fashionable to think of our time as a society divided, one of poisonous political debate and almost unprecedented ad hominem attacks. In truth, it was much worse back then. As if banging his head against a brick wall, Keith Joseph, one of the intellectual godfathers of Thatcherism and then shadow education secretary, would routinely tour the universities to preach his free market message, and equally routinely he would be shouted down. I suppose he was at least allowed to speak; today he would be no-platformed.
These days Britain is not so obviously in danger of imminent economic collapse, but it is a nation hungry for change that is increasingly fed up with the consensually driven politics of the centre ground. This much we do have in common with the 1970s, and it leads logically to some very worrying conclusions.
The political cycle can be a long one and it may be, as Jeremy Corbyn and his hard-left colleagues in the Labour Party have sensed, that the Thatcherite era has finally run its course. Ideologically, Thatcher and Mr Corbyn could scarcely be further apart but, as political phenomena, there are similarities; after the bland centrism of the Blairite/brown/cameron years, Corbyn, like Thatcher after the impotence of Heath and Callaghan, offers something significantly different: change, and the promise, however delusional, of an alternative future.
Those of us old enough to remember know his message to be a fraud, but there is a growing body of the population that is impervious to these warnings. To them, Mr Corbyn’s Cold War contacts, or even past associations with terrorist organisations, belong to a bygone age and are simply not relevant. Memories of his policy agenda in practice are fast becoming lost in the mists of time, allowing for the possibility of rebirth. Rarely has it been easier to be in opposition. Paralysed by minority government and the complexities of Brexit, the Tories appear incapable of countering the Corbyn onslaught on domestic policy.
We can only pray that between now and the next general election voters come to their senses – but I wouldn’t bet on it. No countervailing message of hope and optimism emanates from Downing Street. Theresa May and Philip Hammond may be right in regarding Brexit as more of a problem than an opportunity, but it is not what the public want to hear. Mrs May has at best little more than a year left in office. If she believes in what she is doing, why doesn’t she go out and sell the message on the doorstep? What does she have to lose? Instead, her positioning on Brexit seems more about placating big business, the City and EU negotiators than answering the demands of voters.
Callaghan fought his campaign against Thatcher in 1979 on the basis that the change she promised would do the country irrecoverable damage. At the same time, he was warning his Cabinet that Britain’s situation was so dire that, if he had been a young man, he would have emigrated. The electoral parallels are there, and Mr Corbyn knows it. Just as Thatcher sensed that the time was ripe to take the country to the Right, Corbyn plans to exploit the same desire for change to take it to the Left. Looking at the almost hopeless level of leadership in the Conservative Party today, the tragedy is that he could yet succeed. FOLLOW Jeremy Warner on Twitter @jeremywarneruk; READ MORE at telegraph.co.uk/opinion