The commentators 14-09-15...on Jeremy CorbynWell, folks, the joke’s over. They really have elected him: a man who rebelled against the Labour Party 533 times, who cosies up to just about every terrorist group in the world, who wants this country to leave Nato and who once campaigned for school playing fields to be handed over to gypsies. It is surreal, incredible – and yet Jeremy Corbyn is now in charge of Her Majesty’s Official Opposition, and we must take him seriously
- Boris Johnson, Daily Telegraph The new question for the opposition is not “how can we win?” but “who can we help?” The Blairite line is, nobody; not until you have the keys to No 10. If Corbyn can crack open the certainties of politics, so that the alienating verities of centrism, fake moderation and evasiveness have to cede to something more like a contest between genuinely different ideas, opposition may become a meaningful pursuit even while power is unknowably distant.
- Zoe Williams, The Guardian The Conservative party has a double duty over the next five years. First, it must prevent the most dangerous man and entourage ever to have led Labour from getting into Downing Street. Second, and more profoundly, it must understand why so many decent Labour supporters were so desperate for change that they were willing to embrace a man from their party’s fringes
- Tim Montgomerie, The Times Given that Jeremy Corbyn will not become Prime Minister, as even many of his supporters accept, there is no way that this can end well for the Labour Party. A YouGov poll at the beginning of August found that 30 per cent of Corbyn supporters intended to vote for him even though they didn’t think that Labour was likely to win the 2020 election with him as leader. Because that is not why they voted for him
- John Rentoul, The Independent It may all end in disaster, but Corbyn didn't create the economic collapse, depressed wages, rising national debt or public services creaking due to savage cuts. Nor did he send British soldiers to their deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan. He is drawing thick red lines under Labour's past and putting clear blue water between himself and austerity obsessed Tories who are the dangerous extremists in British politics
- Kevin Maguire, Daily Mirror For New Labour, Corbyn’s victory is a disaster. There are already rumblings from MPs that he will be ousted “before Christmas”. “What has happened to the party?” asked one Shadow Cabinet minister, capturing “the mood of incredulity and panic” at the top after six leading lights resigned from the front bench in a mutiny minutes after Corbyn won
- Jane Warren, Daily Express The age of the conviction politician willing to offer socialist alternatives to the status quo, and confident enough to say we don’t have to take our broken society as an immutable given, is breaking. It may not be the French revolution, but it is a blissful dawn to greet.
- Len McCluskey, The Guardian What is the world supposed to make of a British party standard-bearer who has befriended and encouraged the nation’s enemies for 40 years? Even when he is forced to concede that the behaviour of a given revolutionary group is imperfect, as with Islamic State publicly beheading its hostages, he hastens to add that ‘some of what the US military has done is quite appalling’ - Max Hastings, Daily Mail
Jeremy Corbyn’s assumption of the Labour leadership is no less astounding for being widely predicted. Britain’s main opposition party has chosen the most radical left leader in its history — a politician surely unelectable as prime minister. The impact may well be felt beyond the Labour party. Eurosceptics on the far right of British politics are quietly celebrating Mr Corbyn’s victory
- Philip Stephens, Financial Times What would have happened had the shootings taken place not in America, but in Norwich? What if the victims had been a local TV crew known to two or three hundred thousand people? Would our London-based newspaper executives have thought "We've never heard of them, so we'll use lots of gory pictures" or "They're British. We'll show some restraint"?
What if the victims had been a Newsnight reporter and cameraman, people we were used to seeing in our living rooms, people known all over the country? Would the photographic coverage have been muted - in deference to our familiarity and their families - or even more excessive? Editor's blog: Murder on camera Comment archive, 2015 |
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September 11
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