Quote Originally Posted by KerrAvon View Post
I wasn't a fan of Corbyn.

I think it is incredibly lazy to blame the media for his failures - it's a kind of comfort blanket that people who share his politics hang on to rather than face the truth.

The truth is that the media didn't have to do much of job on Jeremy. Reporting his actual words and deeds were enough.

Corbyn lives in a world of 1970s student politics in which he is more interested in the West Bank than the West Midlands and Gaza rather than Glasgow. I'm not saying that it is wrong for people to hold an internationalist outlook, but it's a bad trait in a political leader, because the electorate sense and resent the disinterest in them and their lives. That's why the red wall fell -not because the red tops took a dislike to him.

And Corbyn also managed to give the impression that he didn't actually like the UK very much. That was epitomised by his comments over the Novichok incident, where he appeared to struggle with the concept that Russia might have been a bit naughty in Salisbury (despite Russia no longer being the same country that he idolised in his student days). Again, disliking the country that you say you want to lead is an unhelpful trait when it comes to election time.

As for the current set up, I am surprised that anyone wants the PM job at the moment. Talk about a poisoned chalice... We live in a country that voted for an act of economic self-harm in 2016 - effectively imposing trade sanctions on ourselves - and are struggling to deal with the aftermath of covid. It's going to be a **** show for the next few years.

The Tories pushed a lot of the grown ups out of the party because they were a bit too remainy and are living with the consequences of that. I'd say that there is a 50% chance that their civil war will break out again and that Sunak will be gone before the next GE.
I get what you're saying. He was by no means perfect, I've always said that. He was effectively dropped into a job he probably didn't want in the first place. He was put in the frame by the lazy centrists as a sop candidate to fob off the left. Unfortunately, it backfired as they were so out of touch with the membership who were so pi**ed off with the shambles that the Labour Party had become. The rest is history.

Corbyn was very naive, but he connected with and gave hope to a lot of people who normally wouldn't bother voting. His chance was in 2017. Remember, Corbyn got over 40% of the popular vote - the Tories had 42%. With hindsight, the Labour party should have reset after that although Brexit would have been very difficult whoever was in charge. The red wall would have rejected any centrist remainer just as vociferously as they did Corbyn - probably more so. It's interesting that whilst Labours share of the popular vote collapsed by around 2 million in 2019 the Tories was almost unchanged (13.6m up to 13.9m). This one fact alone shows how unsuitable and antiquated our electoral system really is.

It's a shame that the current leadership don't adopt at least some of Corbyn's policies, preferring instead to instigate a witch hunt against the left. The Labour Party has always been a broad church of views. It should continue to be so.