Opinion Polls, Jeremy Corbyn, Porn for Girlies and the lies of the Press

This morning I awoke to yet another article, this time by Matthew Parris in The Times, describing how Labour are in termoil, how they are unelectable, how the "moderates" need to mount a coup. As I read it, I got to thinking "hang on a minute, how come if Labour are doing so badly, I've not seen opinion polls on the front page saying this"? I've actually not seen a single poll in any of the papers I read since Corbyn was elected. How odd is this? As I lay in bed drinking my tea, I was wondering if the polling organisations have given up, since the May election debacle?

Courtesy UK Polling Report

I was planning to write a blog about music today, but this nagging feeling that we are all being seriously mislead by the press was tugging at me. In this day and age, it is simple enough to find information. I simply typed "latest opinion polls" into Google. What came back shocked me to the core. The first item was the UK POLLING REPORT website. Far from there being no polls, there have been dozens since the last election. If you had read the Times article, you'd expect the Corbyn effect to see Labour in single digits or even less. The general consensus of these polls is a srong trend towards Labour narrowing the gap on the Tories. In the aftermath of the election, the Tories were polling at 40%, with a double digit lead. This has dropped to the mid 30's and a 5% lead on average.

The UKPOLLING website also details that the Daily Mail commissioned a poll from Comres, which was released yesterday and showing Labour up 3%. So I went to the Daily Mail website to see what they had to say about it. Not a sausage on their front page. So I did a site search. Not a mention anywhere. There are plenty of stories of Labour in disarray and a meltdown, but not a sausage about the fact that the numbers don't support this. Interestingly, the same site has a little dig at the Mail for its use of voodoo polls. What do we make of this comment?


UPDATE: While I’m here in voodoo polling corner, I should also highlight this cracking example of a voodoo poll in the Daily Mail. It claims “One in three women admit they watch porn at least once a week”… but it seems to be an open access poll of Marie Claire readers, certainly it is in no way representative of all women in terms of things like age. It contains the delightful line that “Out of the more than 3,000 women surveyed, 91 per cent of the survey’s respondents identify as female, eight per cent identify as men and one per cent is transgender.” I don’t know how to break it to them, but you probably can’t include the 8% who are men in a survey of 3000 women.

 Another Poll which you won't see in any of the anti EU press is reported on the site. If you believe the Daily Express, there is a huge consensus for leaving the EU. Again the figures show this is a myth

ICM’s latest weekly tracker on the EU referendum has voting intentions of REMAIN 44%(-1), LEAVE 38%(+2). The gap has narrowed since last week, but doesn’t reflect any real trend: looking at ICM’s EU polls since the referendum wording was changed they’ve been very steady, REMAIN at 42%-45%, LEAVE at 36%-40%. These week’s figures are pretty much in the middle of that range. Tabs are here.
I’ve collected up the polling on the referendum so far here.

I was under the impression that the purpose of a free press in a democracy was to inform us and to tell us the truth. Can anyone possibly think that we are siing honest reporting of the facts. This week at Prime Ministers Question Time, Jeremy Corbyn probably had his best yet performance. The consensus was that he nailed Cameron. I have no doubt that the majority of the Parliamentary Labour Party hate Corbyns guts and are secretly praying he falls under a bus. They are however waking up to the fact that he has the measure of Cameron at PMQ's. John Crace, sketchwriter for the Guardian summed it up pretty well.

For the first time, Corbyn stuck to the same topic for all six of his questions and Dave was left opening and closing his mouth like a demented goldfish that had only just realised it had no choice but to swim round and round in circles. The question was simple: could the prime minister please give a guarantee that no one on tax credits would be worse off next April? There’s only a certain numbers of ways a politician can say: “No, of course I can’t, because I had always assumed the legislation would go through on the nod and George and I haven’t begun to work out a back-of-an-envelope compromise,” and Dave had run out long before he got to six. Telling Corbyn that Karen would be better off because other people living near her would be better off was particularly unconvincing.

The "received wisdom" was that Corbyn would be marmalised by Cameron every week, Labour polling figures would go into meltdown and within a few months the logic for a Blairite coup would be irrefutable. The right wing press are still sticking to that mantra. The truth is that nothing of the sort is happening. The polls clearly indicate that Labour voters are in no way spooked by Corbyn. This is a rather inconvenient truth for many people. I suspect that rather like Thatcher, the public see Corbyn as someone who is an outsider who stands up for what he believes in. The idea that this would spook the British public is nonsense. Clearly there are sectors of the population who loathe and despise him. I would guess that apart from the Parliamentary Labour party, nearly all of these would never vote Labour anyway. To win an election, Corbyn needs to persuade swing voters that he's not a dangerous nutcase. Considering that he's had nearly six months of having the kitchen sink thrown at him by the right wing press and Labour is more popular than it was in May, it is clear that he is winning that battle.

For many people in the UK, the real threat to their households are the hard right ideology of David Cameron and George Osborne. There are many sensible voices in the Conservative Party who recognise the fact that if you attack hard working people on low wages, you will see your support base fall away. Many Tory MP's were delighted that the Lords pulled the rug from George Osbornes proposal to cut the incomes of millions through working tax credits. You never see these stories in the Mail, but the truth is that they are not stupid and they have realised that George Osborne may be skewering their chances of winning the next election. Whilst the Tories clearly have a working majority, they know that tehy were gifted the election by a completely inept campaign from Labour. The Tories scared the living daylights out of the electorate with stories of the SNP running the country. Labour never had an answer to these stories and buried their heads in the sand. Will they learn? This is the biggest challenge for Corbyn. I could probably write the Tories strategy plan for the 2020 election today, if Corbyn remains in power. As an engineer by trade, when I design a solution, the first thing I do is try and anticipate all of the scenarios that will break my design. I then design my solution to mitigate them. The one thing which I have a massive admiration for Tony Blair and his new Labour machine was that they understood this. They had a "rapid rebuttal unit". This team was on 24 hour standby to get a response out to any Tory scare story and turn it on its head. Ed Miliband replace it with "head in the sand" unit. Every scare the Tories put out was met with a vacant scare and a few mumbled words over a bacon sarnie.

Whatever Jeremy Corbyn does or doesn't do, if he is serious about winning the election, he will have to design a strategy to counter the lies and distortions of a press owned by billionaires with a huge financial interest in maintaining a tax cutting Tory government. To me the answer is simple, it is right here before your eyes. The likes of the Mail and Express cannot be taken on at their own game or oin their own terms. Social media is the way forward. Blogs such as this give people the chance to see the facts that the Press Barons don't want us to see. We can highlight the fact that The Daily Mail commissions polls and then suppresses the results when they don't suit the agenda.

There are many reasons I write blogs. Today the reason is sheer anger at the fact that organisations we are supposed to be able to trust are packed with lies. It makes me sick. But it also inspires me to get out of bed on a Saturday morning and try my damnedest to rectify the wrong that is beng perpetrated on us all.

Why Corbyns question time was a roaring success

It is reported that at the end of yesterdays Prime Ministers question time, it is reported that David Cameron turned to George Osborne and said "That was easy". Given that Cameron has been doing this for ten years, he probably thought it was. What perhaps he didn't realise was that Jeremy Corbyn wasn't playing the same game.The vast majority of the general public are not interested in politics or politicians and don't know who Corbyn is. These are the people who make or break leaders. All they've heard about Corbyn from the right wing press, owned by billionaires, is that he's a left wing nut case. Corbyns first job is to persuade ordinary people that he is an ordinary bloke, who cares about improving the quality of their lives. In this respect, you can only judge his performance as a resounding success. Political commentators have berated him for not having acid follow up questions or witty digs. But this misses the point. What Cameron failed to do was answer the questions. That won't have gone unnoticed. For Corbyn, the challenge is to get people to believe he'll represent them and make their lives better. If you judge his display yesterday against this criteria, he did the job. It was hilarious to see right wing tweeters deconstructing his performance and saying that because he didn't sing the anthem everybody hates him. I suspect that if they continue to miss the point they are doomed.

The nonsense of claims that Jeremy Corbyn is an anti semite

First of all, let me put my cards on the table. I disagree with Jeremy Corbyn on the issue of Israel. If I were an Israeli citizen, I would see no earthly reason why I should be lectured on respecting the rights of organisations that are a) committed to my complete destruction and b) prepared to use women and children as suicide bombers etc in an effort to kill innocent Israeli citizens. As a UK citizen, I recognise the fact that Israel is a rare thing in the middle east. It is a democracy with a functional legal system. I also have no sympathy at all with Hamas who are an extremely unpleasant organisation. When we lecture Israel on how it should respect Palestinian citizens, those of us in the west completely forget just how little respect we showed for the civilain population of Dresden, Hiroshoma, Nagasaki etc. The Soviets were no great respecters of the civil rights of the Germans either, with millions of German women raped after the fall of Berlin. So who has the moral authority to criticise the actions of the Israelis under a never ending onslaught? That doesn't mean that I think the Israelis are entirely blameless in every action they have taken. I certainly don't think the actions of illegal settlers help the situation. I often read of attacks in Gaza where I'd rather they hadn't retailiated with such force and I for one would prefer a less hawkish government there that would try harder to engage with moderate Palestinians. But at the end of the day, I understand why Israelis elect hard line governments and I can't really say I blame them.

Jeremy Corbyn takes a completely different view of the situation. In recent days, various parties, from the Jewish Chronicle, to the Daily Express to some senior Labour figures have tried to portray him as an anti semite because he is sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. It seems to me that there is a sizable and rather dishonest bunch of people who push a philosphy that Pro Palestinian = Anti Semitic. Whilst it is beyond doubt that some anti Semites see the Palestinian issue as a useful one to nail their flag to, for the vast majority of people sympathetic to the plight of ordinary Palestinians, the concept of anti Semitism is abhorrent. Because the issue is rather emotive, it seems that sense and reason sometimes is the last thing which is given consideration.  A typical example is Stephen Pollards column in todays Daily Express. Pollard is the highly respected editor of the Jewish Chronicle and not normally one to make wild or outlandish claims. Pollard states

"Because there are questions hanging over Mr Corbyn with which he refuses to engage. Questions which go to the core of his beliefs. During the leadership election, a number of worrying links have been exposed between Mr Corbyn and some of the most noxious and vile – and, in some cases, violent – anti-Semites. Mr Corbyn is a long-standing critic of Israel and advocate of the rights of Palestinians – an entirely honourable position. Most British Jews also support the emergence of a Palestinian state.But there is a pattern in some of Mr Corbyn’s associations – a pattern not of campaigning against Israel or for Palestinians but of attacking Jews"

This sets the tone of the article. All manner of "guilt by association" type allegations are made. However Pollard fails to cite a single example of anyting in Corbyns 32 years as an outspoken Parliamentarian that supports the case that his is an anti semite. Corbyn has made a name for himself speaking out for deeply unpopular causes. Long before the Guildford 4 and Birmingham 6 were acquitted, Corbyn spoke out on their behalf. At the time they were seen as members of the IRA, who were conducting a vicious terrorist campaign against the UK. Corbyn pulled no punches and despite the fact that his position was deeply unpopular and that he was regularly vilified by the press, he continued to speak out on behalf of these wrongly convicted innocent men. So the concept that Corbyn is an anti semite is based purely on the fact that he's associated with some people who clearly are, not on his own views.

Is this a sustainable theory? There are several things which Stephen Pollard has completely ignored in his analysis. Firstly Corbyn is clearly an intellectual. One of the things intellectuals tend to do is enjoying listening to all manner of arguments, deconstructing these to help them form an opinion. If you only ever interact with people who you agree with, ultimtely you learn nothing. One of the people quoted as being supported by Corbyn is Paul Eisen. I'd never heard of Eisen prior to the article. I thought I'd do a bit of research. He wrote an article for "Righteous Jews" entitled "My life as a holocaust denier". Just in case you are wondering what the Righteous Jew website is all about, it says

To be considered and selected, a "Righteous Jew" must

1. Consider himself or herself to be Jewish. He or she does not have to be religious. Non-practicing Jews and even atheists can be considered.
   
   
2. Have demonstrated solidarity with Palestinians as human beings, deserving of being treated equally with all other people in the lands between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, one country with equal citizenship for all.
   
   
3. Have faced disparagement, discrimination, or even death as a consequence of his or her standing up for the rights of Palestinians.

It is not important why a "Righteous Jew" has defended Palestinian rights or whether his or her actions were based on friendship, altruism, religious belief, humanitarianism, or simple human decency. Candidates may be considered posthumously.

Now I can only describe the views of Paul Eisen towards the holocaust as extremely odd. I am quite sure if I was Jewish and had lost family in the holocaust, I'd find them offensive. I am not a big fan of long, boring articles which are full of waffle and use all manner of ridiculous and extremely tenuous connections to justify the unjustifiable. But unlike Corbyn, I am not an intellectual. My idea of a good night out is a few beers and a loud punk rock band. Corbyns is to sit around discussing absurd theories with people he may or may not agree with.  It is very hard to argue against anything if you don't understand the arguments which your opponent is making.

The second thing which Stephen Pollard misrepresents is the fact that Corbyn is very polite. When he introduces people at meetings and rallys as "my friends", he is not saying "after this is over, we are going down the dog and duck for a few pints, followed by a curry and on Saturday we are going to watch West Ham together". He is simply being polite and trying to make people feel welcome. Pollard cites the case of Raed Salah as an example of him communing with all manner of vicious anti semites. The article says

According to Mr Corbyn, Salah is a “ very honoured citizen” who “represents his people extremely well”. You might think from that Salah is some sort of Mandela figure or even a Yasser Arafat. But Salah is not an anti-Israel campaigner. He is an anti-Semitic hate preacher.

Now it is pretty clear that Saleh is a firebrand and has some very extreme views. At a first glance you may think "why on earth would Corbyn want to engage with such a man? The answer is quite simple. The clue is in Pollards own statement. Yasser Arafet was views as the devil incarnate in many quarters when he first hit the scene as the leader of the PLO. I have no doubt that Mossad would have bumped him off given half a chance and  many of my Jewish friends would have cracked open the bubbly to celebrate. The point was that he was eventually engaged and brought into the process. He was  lauded by many as a "very honoured citizen" and a man who "represents his people very well". The sad truth is that the likes of Saleh have influence and followers. Churchill stated that "Jaw Jaw is better than War War". The concept that peace in the middle east can be achieved without some sort of engagement with such people is ridiculous. I can 100% understand why Pollard finds it sickening to laud such people and in some ways he's not wrong. The sad truth though is that if you are Prince Charles, ultimately you have to shake hands with Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness even though they are responsible for the death of your favourite uncle. Sadly history tells us that peace doesn't happen when nice, reasonable people on both sides decide that too many people have died and it is good for their people to stop.  Peace happens when the complete bastards, who care nothing for anyone or anything beyond their own power and extreme views are somehow engaged.

I do not beleive in appeasement of repugnant ideologies, at any price, for a quiet life. It doesn't work. I do however recognise that total rejection of dialog is no more effective.  There has to be a middle way and this involves polite dialog with people you don't agree with. Stephen Pollard, in the Jewish Chronicle, challenges Corbyn to do various things to "prove he's not an enemy of the Jewish community". It seems to me that Stephen Pollard thinks that failure to go around condemning all and sundry is enough to make someone an enemy. To me this is a ridiculous position to take. What he wants is a Labour leader who is simply interested in shouting at the world, rather than someone who may actually want to start a dialog and undertand the issues in a bit more depth.  Take for example point 6 on Pollards list

6. Why have you failed to condemn the anti-Semitic posters and banners that dominate the annual Al-Quds Day rally, sponsored by the Stop The War Coalition, which you chair?

If Corbyn was to spend his life denouncing every poster, every slogan, every t-shirt that was worn at every rally he's supported, he'd spend his life shouting meaningless slogans. As editor of the Jewish Chronicle, does Pollard endorse and support every word that written in it? Does he denounce every statement from the extreme reaches of his community? Maybe he does, but I am sure he's got far better ways to spend his day. Ultimately we judge you, me, Jeremy Corbyn and Stephen Pollard by what we say, what we write and what actions we take. I am sure Pollard knows a few vile characters that he's perfectly polite to. I certainly do. To get the information I need to write this blog, I try and keep my lines of communication open to all parts of the community. This means that sometimes you have to be polite and listen to people spout nonsense. In the course of researching this blog, I've heard some of the most vile things. Two issues locally, the Eruv and Etz Chaim school have prompted some people to make extremely anti semitic statements to me. I have on several occasions been deeply shocked by some of these statements. It would have been quite easy to write blogs which completely denounced the anti Eruv and Etz Chaim campaigns as hotbeds of anti semitism. I didn't for the simple reason that these voices didn't represent the campaign and it would have been highly unfair to the 99% of people who had quite reasonable objections. To have reported some of the statements and named some of the individuals would have simply inflamed the community in Mill Hill. As both the Eruv and the school are established and the world hasn't ended, it seems that common sense has prevailed. I suspect that I could have written blogs which ended up in punch ups and court cases. Would that really have served our community well? Denouncing people and sloganising is not always the best way.

In truth, I don't think it will matter a fig who wins the Labour Party leadership battle, in relation to the UK Jewish community or the security of Israel. One could make the case that Israel would probably be safer and more secure had the Corbyn view prevailed with regards to the Iraq war. As a betting man, I don't believe that whoever wins the Labour nomination will ever become Prime Minister. Burnham and Cooper are clearly completely useless, Liz who? is a nonentity. I suspect that Corbyn will prove to be a far better leader of the opposition than his opponents care to admit, but unless the Tories have a melt down over the European referendum, the maths simply isn't with him, especially if the Blairites spend the next five years plotting and indulging in rifts and wars. I've often wondered what are the circumstances in which Israel could secure a lasting peace agreement with its neighbours. This can only come when the influential Palestinian groups abandon the requirement for the destruction of Israel in their constitutions. If they had the political savvy to do this, I suspect that they could get most of what they want and the Middle East could become an area of peace and prosperity. Sadly, it seems that there are very rich and powerful forces which are hell bent on preventing this ever being considered. Sadly the biggest losers are the Palestinian people, who seemed condemned to live in a vision of hell. I suspect that what motivates Corbyn is compassion for these people, rather than any hatred of Jewish people. Until the likes of Stephen Pollard can actually provide  some documentary evidence to the contrary, I will continue to believe this. One thing is 100% clear to me. If Corbyn was put before a court of law charged with antisemitism, based on Pollards evidence, he'd be aquitted in minutes and Pollard would be laughed out of court.

Why I am convinced that Jeremy Corbyn will win the 2020 election if elected

Until this morning I had bought into the concept that Jeremy Corbyn had no chance of winning a general election if elected as leader of the Labour Party. The reason I felt it was still worth supporting him is because I thought that whichever of the four won, Labour would lose. I felt that Corbyn would at least reinvigorate the party and connect it with its grass roots and help it move on from its 20th century obsession with spin and vacuosity. I can honestly see no way a party lead by Burnham or Cooper could win a general election and no way they could attract new members. Whilst I felt Liz Kendall could win a general election, there is absolutely no way the Labour party would choose her, so in effect she is a non candidate. I don't really like Kendall, she appears to have no compassion  and no empathy with her own party. I suspect that like many, if she was elected I'd grudgingly support her as "Cameron lite" is better than "Cameron Max". Whatever misgivings I had about the Blair/Brown years, there is no doubt that Britain became a far more socially progressive country. The reason I don't support Kendall is that she buys into a philosophy that ultimately failed us all miserably.

So what has convinced me that Jeremy Corbyn will win? You may find this rather odd, but my hallelujah moment came reading this mornings Sunday Times. Every page I turned, I saw yet another character assasination of Corbyn. Here's a few examples. Page 1 & 2 a story about how the Labour Party is being "Infiltrated on an industrial scale". It seems the Sunday Times objects to the fact that people who had left the Labour party due to the Blairites are rejoining in droves to support an MP they agree with. It says "there was absolutely no way that Labour officials would catch all the Green, Trotskyist and Conservative supporters who had signed up to take part in the leadership contest". It strikes me as unlikely that many Trotskyists will "rejoin to support Corbyn", certainly not enough to tip the balance. Corbyn isn't a Trotskyite and true believers would see him as beyond the pale. As for Tories signing up to cause mischief, again the numers will be miniscule. Many joke about it, but by and large Tories would begrudge the Labour party a single penny. Which brings us to Greens. Those rejoining are by and large former Labour members with principles, who see Corbyn as a chance to rebuild the party. On page 18 we have a full page Camilla Long hatchet job. Pravda would have been proud of this piece. It gives no insight into Corbyn and is full of sly innuendo, portraying anyone who sympathises with Corbyn as deluded. This Brian Eno quote, produced with no context is typical "I don't think that electability is really the most important thing". On page 23 we have a trademark Ian Dale article claiming Corbyn only even thought of standing when "Sarah in London" suggested it and yet another hatchet job, this time from Anne Applebaum, with the title "While Russia burns books, the useful idiot Corbyn swallows its lies whole". This rather odd article seems to ignore the fact that half the world wasn't born when Russia was under a notionally Marxist state. Because Corbyn has criticised western policies towards Ukraine (which have not exactly been stunningly successful) and suggested supporters may find the news coverage by Russia today interesting , he must support the burning of books, seems to be the analaysis of this Pulitzer Prize winning author. I buy papers such as The Daily Express as I like to read a wide range of views. I suppose that this makes me a pornographer, given Richard Desmonds business portfolio. It is nonsense.

As I read this nonstop barrage of complete nonsense, two things struck me. First, despite the endless words and columns, there was no attempt at all to desconstruct the views of Corbyn. There was no analysis of what he was actually saying. I sort of expect this type of nonsense in the Daily Mail, which is not really a paper to be taken seriously, but for the Sunday Times to print so many "non articles" with so little analysis was extraordinary. I've no idea how much the Times pays people to write articles, but I'd guess Pulitzer Prize winners are not the cheapest columnists.  The second thing that struck me was, given that Murdoch is a natural Tory, why so much bile would be poured on someone who, if the Times is to believed, would destroy Labours chances of winning.If Corbyn was electoral poison, surely Murdochs papers would be more than happy to see Labour elect him and destroy itself. The only logical conclusion is that Murdoch does not buy into the idea that Corbyn is electoral poison. Why else would he throw every resourse at his hands at trying to give his leadership aspirations an abortion? The only conclusion is that Murdoch rejects the notion that Corbyn is unelectable and is in a state of high panic. I suspect that Murdoch knows that one of Corbyns first targets if he is ever elected will be the likes of Murdoch.

So how could Corbyn possibly win? What a ridiculous idea is that? If you consider the maths, maybe not. The Conservatives are embarking on a vicious program of austerity. I can't really see this enhancing their popularity. They won in2015 by cannabilising the votes of their Lib Dem partners. Many of these voters are already bitterly regretting putting the Tories in. I doubt there are many more Lib Dems to "turn" and many are considering "turning back". I've heard many people saying that it is only now we see how important the Lin Dems were. The economy is doing OK at the moment. This is not the product of this Tory administration, but of the Coalition. It will take at least a couple of years for us to know if a Tory only regime can improve the economy, but I doubt that the British Economy can sustain current growth rates for the next five years. Whatever happens, no commentators think interest rates will be anything other than higher in 2020, which will hit household budgets.

The Tories were elected by 24% of the electorate. It is unlikely that 24% of the electorate will do better under the Tories. Many of Corbyns policies will appeal to the 76% of the electorate who didn't vote Tory. Some such as abolition of tuition fees will appeal to the 24% who did, especally Lib Dem switchers. I doubt even too many Tories would cry if the railways were renationalised. As someone who uses the railways every day, it is clear that the franchising system doesn't work. In effect it is a scam that takes taxpayers money and lines the pockets of foreign investors. Whilst the hard right believe nationalisation to be a rude word, anyone who has had to endure years of sub standard travel services will take a different view. There has been so little discussion of left politics since Blair took over. Whilst the Tories hark back to the days of Michael Foot, for a couple of generations of voters this is ancient history. Things have changed. Corbyn isn't talking the language of Foot. How could he? When Foot was Labour Leader, railways were nationalised, students got grants. Corbyn has a whole swathe of ideas that appeal to many people not only on the left, but in the Centre. During the Blair years, the left displayed a remarkable amount of restraint and loyalty to the party. If the right of Labour show the same discipline and work with Corbyn, it is more than possible that a popular and populist platform could be developed. I suspect that decent NHS services, Student Grants, Rail nationalisation, a tax system designed to help the many, not the few and laws to protect working people from the worst ravages of rampant capitalism will not prove quite as unpopular as the Murdoch Press would have you believe.

Until this morning, I'd thought that such talk was wishful thinking, but I read the articles several times and it is clear to me that the rich and powerful such as Murdoch are rattled and resorting to everr more desperate tactics to try and scare the living daylights out of people who are tempted by the Corbyn camp.  When I read the articles it actually had the reverse effect on me. The Britsh dislike dishnoesty and I am sure that they see right through the dodgy spin of Murdoch and his army of highly paid Pulitzer prize winning mercenaries. In fact if by chance we see a Corbyn lead administration in 2020, I think the likes of Murdoch will be one of the reasons. For decades the attack dog tactics of the Murdoch Press have destroyed leader after leader for the Labour party. One may conclude that because its always worked, it always will. Sadly for the likes of Murdoch, things have moved on. In the electronic age, Twitter, Blogger and Facebook mean that there are many other sources of information and the likes of The Sun and The Times can get called out in away that the likes of Michael Foot could never have dreamed of. The trouble for Murdoch is that he's largely preaching to the converted. Papers such as the Times and The Sun have shed readers and influence massively in recent years. It is not inconceivable that one or both may not even exist in 2020. At best The Times is likely to be the equivalent of the Saga house magazine, read by wealthy pensioners mainy reading it to plan autmn holidays in Tuscany and investments of their pension pots. As for The Sun, in 2010 it had over 3 million readers, now it has under two million. If it has more than a million in 2020, that will be a minor miracle. It's decline is accelerating, shedding over 200,000 readers between 2013 and 2014. Whilst Kinnock and Foot knew that they would face a slow assasination from these papers, a Corbyn leadership would face a different beast. Not only that, but social media is built for campaigners such as Corbyn, who can rely on people using Fazcebook and Twitter to feed campaigns and bolster support. Whilst Foot and Kinnock had no mass media to make their case, Corbyn knows that if he gets it right, his message will go viral on the net. This costs nothing and is far more effective than dodgy articles by paid hacks. Whilst we don't trust the Murdoch press, we all trust our friends and family and when they share info with us, we read it.

It is interesting to see new Labour figures desperately looking at means to "fix" the Corbyn problem, I suspect that all of the denouncements of entryists is counter productive. If Labour start banning ex members who got disilliusioned and joined the Greens, they are doomed. Green members are hard working activists and generally honest and principled. If Labour are saying they don't want them, what exactly are they saying. If all Labour want to be is a metropoitan elite who believe in nothing, they will be permanently unelectable. There will be plenty of water under the bridge between now and the 2020 election. The Tories have tied a huge albatross around their neck by announcing Cameron will go. This Parliament will be dominated first by the EU referendum and then by the Tory leadership contest. I suspect that Cameron will have to go in 2018 to allow a new Leader a period to make his name. This puts another variable into the mix. Osborne is the front runner, but just suppose he does a Gordon Brown when stepping up to the top table. When Brown took over, he was viewed as a heavyweight and an awesome presence. Within six months, it was clear that he was a liability. Just suppose that Osborne is another great chancellor who can't step up, then it is possible that Corbyn will prove to be the man in the right place in the right time. As Napoleon once said "Give me a lucky general any day".

Labour Leadership Special - Do Blairites actually believe in Labour Party Democracy

As it starts to look increasingly likely that Jeremy Corbyn will win the Labour Party leadership contest, we seem to hear ever more wild suggestions from those at the right of the party. MP John Mann has suggested that the party suspend the contest. He seems to be saying that the contest has attracted "the wrong sort of Labour supporters" to use the old British Rail phrase. It seems that the Blairites are claiming that the the £3 offer to have a say as a registered supporter has attracted "Tories and Militant Tendency" to join and sway the vote towards Corbyn.

Whilst it is true that some Tory commentators suggested that Tories do such a thing, there is no evidence that this has happened in any sort of numbers to actually affect the campaign. In general it is the one or two jokers in every party, who do it in the vain hope that they will impress their friends. I suspect that the last thing the Tories actually want in reality is Corbyn, so it is only the very stupid who will do this. As to the claim that it is militant tendency, this is complete cobblers. The way militant worked was that it would join associations and over a long period of time engineer changes to constitutions and committees to exclude normal members. As the last poll I saw said that 47% were backing Corbyn, this clearly was not the case. This is not a long campaign of cunning Trotskyite entryists. It is clearly a popular movement. It is also clear that the "entryists" are largely students and formerly loyal Labour members who were sickened by the lack of compassion in the Blair/Brown years.

Another thing which intrigues me is just how silent Gordon Brown is. From what I understand, he is not one to hide his light under a bush. Has he realised that his words, like Blairs are likely to simply inflame matters. Blair claimed that anyone voting for Corbyn should have a heart traansplant. To me this was a staggeringly vain and obnoxious statement. Back during the Blairite pomp from 1997-2002 (pre Iraq), it seemed to all, me included, that Blair had seen off the left for good. Whilst I never was a Blairite, it was easy to be seduced by the landslide victories and the obliteration of the Tories. But Blair squandered his victories. He was always to cosy to big business to care about his own party. Thingshe should have done, such as renationalising railways and regulating banking were simply ignored, to keep rich donors happy. By the time we got to 2010, the grassroots had been alienated.

I don't believe that the Blairite mantra is dead. But I do believe that there are simply no Blairites capable of articulating a coherent manifesto. In fact the only person who has is Corbyn. It is not good enough for Blairites to simply stick their fingers in their ears and shout "La La La". They have to have  a clear, concise program and a leader who can articulate it. They cannot simply say "We are better than the Tories". They have to have a program that demonstrates that and a Leader who can make the case. The same is true of Corbyn. If the Blairites cannot put a program together which has the support of the majority of the Labour Party and a Leadership contender who can articluate it, then they can't expect to win. And if the likes of John Mann cannot stomach that, then he clearly doesn't believe in democracy.

Following the general election defeat, Labour clearly needed fresh ideas and a break from the past. Jeremy Corbyn is the only candidate who has remotely offered that. If the great and the good of the Labour party don't like that, then they simply don't like democracy.

The Saturday List #80 - Ten reasons I hope Jeremy Corbyn wins the Labour Leadership race (or why we need an old beardy)

For the record, I'm not a Labour Party Member. I can't vote. I would quite like to cast a vote, but I can't because I am banned from membership of the party until September. By the time my ban ends, the vote will be done and dusted. I formally resigned from the party in September 2009. This is the first time since I resigned from the Party that I've actually felt any urge to rejoin. It was clear to me in 2009 that Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and their respective acolytes had stripped the party of any semblance of an organisation I would want to be a member of. For me the final straw came one day when I was in the gym at lunchtime on a running machine. The news showed French riot police closing a camp housing "asylum seekers" (I hate that term) in the most brutal fashion, dragging a woman screaming by her hair, as her young child looked on screaming. I was mortified that such brutal treatment could be dished out to such a vulnerable person. I wondered what scars the trauma would have on the child? As I watched, the then home secretary, Alan Johnson came on. He applauded the french for their actions and said they needed to be tougher still. At that moment I realised that I no longer wanted to be a member of such an organisation. I immediately wrote to the local Labour Party and resigned. I received a response from the then local MP, Andrew Dismore asking me to reconsider. Correspondence followed, I explained that whilst I wished Andrew well and hoped he won in Hendon, I couldn't remain in the party.

I then joined the Lib Dems. At the time it never ocurred to me that they may form a coalition with the Tories. I joined as they seemed to represent my politics more than Labour. Under Charles Kennedy, they had opposed the Iraq war. They signed a pledge committing to protecting students from rises in tuition fees (remember that?). They were not in hock to rich billionaires as Labour were. They seemed reasonable, decent and fair. Unbeknown to me, the local Labour Party didn't bother to process my resignation. In September 2010, I got a letter stating that I'd been expelled for standing for a rival politcal party, whilst being a Labour member. I immediately contacted the Labour party, attaching the full email trail and the email confirming that  I'd resigned. The response I got was quite amazing. They said none of this mattered as I was still registered as a member. I'd broken the rules and I was welcome to rejoin in September 2015. As I had zero interest in rejoining, I really couldn't be bothered to argue. Until last week, I hadn't even considered the possibility of rejoining. I had toyed with the concept of rejoining the Lib Dems after the election. I quite like Tim Farron. He seems to be a decent guy and I really think we need some sort of political force in Barnet that isn't Tory or Labour, as both parties are completely useless on a local level.

Then Jeremy Corbyn threw his hat into the leadership race.  I've met him a couple of times as a result of his support for the local Trades Unions in the fight against One Barnet. I've shaken his hand and thanked him for his support. In fact Jeremy and John McDonald are the two biggest supporters of the fight against outsourcing. In Barnet, Labour had a massive opportunity to blow a hard right council out of the water. The policies and competence of the Barnet Tories had been ripped to shreds by scandal after scandal. All Labour had to do was be an effective opposition and One Barnet could have been halted and the failure of outsourcing exposed. Sadly Barnet Labour is run by Blairites who love outsourcing. Even when "Your Choice Barnet", a private company set up by the council, with taxpayers money, suffered financial meltdown, Barry Rawlings, the Labour lead on social services agreed with the Tories and signed up to a paper agreeing that an in house solution was not an option.

Rawlings sold the workers and the users of the service down the line. My disgust and contempt for this cabal that have hijacked the Labour movement had been festering, but this action of betrayal was the final straw. In the 2012 GLA campaign, I threw myself heart and soul into trying to get Andrew Dismore elected for Labour. My work was repaid by a stitch up. That is why I've been a vocal opponent of Barnet Labour ever since. I support the decent individuals, such as Amy Trevethan, Paul Edwards and Sarah Sackman, but for the rest of them are a bunch of snakes, in my opinion.

Which brings us to my little list. Here's the ten reasons why I hope Jeremy Corbyn wins.

1. Jeremy Corbyn opposed the Iraq war. History has proven him right. Jeremy saw through the lies of dodgy dossiers. He also was one of the few Labour MP's who seems to realise that International Law is a good thing and should apply to the UK.

2. Jeremy Corbyn wants to see student loans abolished and a return to grants. The UK needs to have a high quality work force. One that isn't saddled with debt. I have three teenage children, two are starting University in September. Many of my childrens friends are intilligent young people who are shunning University because they don't want to spend their lives in debt.

3. Jeremy Corbyn is not in hock to billionaire businessmen. In todays Times a "wealthy Labour donor (or should that be Donut)" says that if Corbyn wins, the cash from billionaires will dry up. If this means that the country is run for the benefit of the less well off, rather than rich vested interests, this can only be a good thing.

4. Jeremy Corbyn has been a steadfast supporter of public sector workers in Barnet. When local Union rep John Burgess had his car vandalised and a homophobic note stuck on his windscreen, Jeremy Corbyn signed the letter of support. Sadly none of the local Labour Party bigwigs could be bothered to follow suit.

5. Jeremy Corbyn is capable of effectively arguing his case. The other three contenders seem incapable of stringing two sentences together without contradicting themselves. Take Andy Burnham. Does anyone know whether he actually agreed with Harriet Harman on supporting the governments welfare bill? No one can say we don't know what Jeremy's position is.

6. Jeremy Corbyn is the only leadership contender who seems to understand that the reason for the economic issues in the UK is not because the weakest and most vulnerable members of society are getting too much in benefits. We are in a mess because under the Tories and Blairites, we had too much banking deregulation. The global economy crashed and the cost of the bale out crippled the UK economy. Sadly it is not the bank executives who had a paycut, it is people on invalidity benefit and victims of the bedroom tax.

7. Jeremy Corbyn doesn't need a spin doctor or focus group to decide what is wrong and what is right. Under the Blairite regime, every policy was tested by focus groups and every statement spun by spin doctors. The Blairites believe that this is the way you win elections. Many people disagree. In 1997 when Blair won, many people expected great things. Sadly most of those hopes turned to dust. Things change and I believe that the electors have grown tired of bland leaders who believe in nothing and stand for nothing. It will be a very tough ask for Corbyn to win an election, but I believe he has a better chance than any of his opponents. This is because all they stand for is a Tory Lite manifesto. By 2020 people may well be heartily sick of there harsh policies. A party with a coherent and attractive alternative will, I beleive, stand a far better chance. Blairites and Tories are desperate,ly trying to commission opinion polls that show voters think Corbyn is Satans Spawn. My view is that he has five years to build a program and so these mean nothing.

8.  Jeremy Corbyn will pose a real challenge to David Cameron at question time. For too long Cameron has had an easy ride. Corbyn knows his subject and doesn't need spin doctors to brief him. He's spent decades forming his views and he is an intelligent man who can put them across. Cameron got away with murder at the despatch box against Miliband. As Miliband lacked the gravity to repel these attacks, Cameron used this to his advantage mercilessly. This simply won't work against Corbyn as it is clear that he isn't stupid and he will not be bullied.

9. Jeremy Corbyn will force the Tories to be more honest about the effects of theiir policies. Miliband never was able to demonstrate just how damaging the attacks on social welfare budgets were. Corbyn knows his facts and cares about the people who are affected. Cameron will try and paint Corbyn as a deluded ideologue who hasn't a clue what he's talking about. This will fail, because Corbyn has spent his life talking to people who are at the sharp end of the Cameron cuts. As Cameron clearly has a compassion defecit, we could find that suddenly "cuddly Cameron" is a thing of the past. As for Osborne, he seems to fancy himself as an intellectual. It will be interesting to see how he copes when he is actually up against one.

10. This is a purely personal reason. At the start of this blog I detailed how I fell out of love with the Labour Party. If Jeremy Corbyn is elected, it will wipe the smug grin off the face of everyone one of the two faced, deceitful and dishionest scumbags who poisoned the Labour Party.

I don't think Corbyn is the answer to all our ills. There are many issues I don't agree with him on, some I srongly disagree on. He is however the only one of the four contenders who I feel has any credibility. I heard someone say "How on earth can we have an old beardy as a Prime Minister?" In my experience, we don't have enough old beardies in politics. During the course of my life, I've tended to find that if I have a real problem or dilemma and "old beardy" will offer far better advice and counsel than a used car salesman type in a sharp suit.

Can Jeremy Corbyn win? Ask Margaret Thatcher

Firstly, let me start by saying I'm not a Labour Party member, so I won't be voting in the forthcoming leadership election. That said, I do have an opinion on the outcome. Personally, I see the only twwo credible candidates as Liz Kendall and Jeremy Corbyn. Cooper and Burnham lost any shred of credibility by going along with collective "head in the sand" strategy to the clear fact that Ed Miliband was taking the bus off the edge of the cliff. Unlike Cooper and Burnham, Kendall at least appears to have some understanding of the fact that you don't win elections if the voters haven't got a clue what you stand for.

Of the four, she's perhaps the nearest thing to an electoral banker, as she's a Blairite and whatever you think of Blair, he clearly knew how to win elections. She isn't perfect, but I suspect that with five years of practicing and with all the heavyweight support from business and the luvvies a Blairite can come to expect, she'd win. It was clear that Cameron won because he was able to scare the hell out of floaters, who didn't trust Miliband and didn't really know what they'd get. This wouldn't work with Kendall. We all know what we get with a Blairite. It isn't really my idea of Labour politics, but it is a damn sight better than a Cameron/Osborne full frontal attack on the welfare state and the weakest people in the country.

But what about the fourth candidate, Jeremy Corbyn. Labours Blairite flunkies have been queueing up to denounce him. They've been saying he'd make the party unelectable and that voters would run a mile from Labour if ever he became Leader. They say he is an extremist and he'd keep Labour out of power for a generation. The problem, as they explain it is that Corbyn is not in the centre and he is a man of conviction. They say that to win an election in the UK, you have to be in the centre. Corbyn is lodged firmly on the left.

So are these siren voices right? Perhaps the only example we can look at, of a leader who was a conviction politician, far from the centre was Margaret Thatcher. when she took over the Tory party, many of the old Tory Grandees fell into a state of shock. A new term was coined for what we may now consider the likes of Cameron. They were "The Wets". Those who allowed the concept of appealing to the voters to get in the way of hard right ideology. Thatcher had little trck with these, although she had to accomodate them in her cabinet, to ensure that she had the support of the party. The likes of Ken Clark, are the last of the old guard of wets. So how did the populace respond to Thatcher? Well they all knew where she stood. In 1979, she won  a small but workable majority. She embarked on the most radicle program of reforms our society had ever seen. By 1981, the economy was in virtual meltdown and the Tories looked to be heading for the door, at the first go. Then she got lucky. In 1982 General Galtieri in Argentina decided to invade the Falklands, Thatcher rallied and by the following year, the myth of the Iron Lady was secure and she won a landslide. Thatcher won three election. The siren Blairite voices site the failure of Michael Foot as the proof that a lefty can't win. However they overlook several factors. The 1979 crop of Blairite equivalents defected and formed the SDP. This ensured that Foot couldn't win. In the aftermath of the Falklands, Foot was on a hiding to nothing anyway, but the fact that his own party was at war finished his chances off. Had the likes of Williams, Owen and Jenkins stayed and fought and not split the Left vote, who knows what the reslt may have been. The only thing we could be sure of is that Thatchers majority would not have been bigger if the SDP rump hadn't split.

What Thatcher proved was that the British can elect a conviction politician who is not from the centre ground. If the electorate gets fed up with centrist conformity and fudging, then sooner or later they want someone to bring in a fresh approach and to shake things up. Could Corbyn do this? Well his announcement that he'd abolish student loans and go back to the old system of grants is one policy which is a definate vote winner. I don't know of a single parent who likes the system of loans. I hate the concept of my children being burdened for decades with debt. I also wonder how Cameron would deal at the despatch box with someone who actually believes what he says and has spent decades forming his opinions and researching them. I suspect that Cameron would find it a totally different sort of experience, than the current situation, where both leaders are given a short briefing on current issues and affairs.

Corbyn would energise the parts of the Labour movement that work hard, such as the Trades Unions and the local activists. There are many things we can't be sure about, but it is a safe bet that the one potential Labour Leader the SNP fear is Corbyn, as he is the type of Labour Leader who could see their huge victory in Scotland turn into a one parliament aberration.

The right wing press is seemingly licking its lips at the prospect of Corbyn vs Cameron at the despatch box. I am not so sure that this will work out quite how they expect. We've had 25 years of people facing each other off, trying to say what they think voters want to hear. All of a sudden, we'll have someone saying what they believe - something which hasn't happened since Thatcher was in charge. How will this work out? I think two things will happen. Firstly Cameron will start to apper very shallow and weak. Secondly people will start to take an interest, in a way they haven't for a long time.

I am quite taken aback by some of the vitriol and some of the dishonesty poured on the Corbyn campaign. I can give a couple of examples. One comment was that Corbyn would have the same disasterous effect on the UK economy as Syriza has had on Greece. This is completely dishonest. The problems of Greece are nothing to do with Syriza which has been in power only for a matter of months. The country has been mismanaged by governments of the left and right for decades. Syriza is just a desparate outpouring of anger at the fact that billionaires pay no tax, whilst ordinary people are forced into poverty by austerity. I've yet to see anyone suggest anything which could actually help the people in Greece suffering from austerity, so why is everyone saying Syriza has been a disaster. Anything would have been a disaster for Greek voters. The only difference is that Syriza have attempted to share some of the pain with EU financiers.

Another highly dishonest charge made against Corbyn is that Labour will go into meltdown and collapse. This is a myth Tory bloggers at the Spectator are keen to circulate. We can only speculate as to why.  Corbyn as Leader would pose a huge challenge to the Blairite faction of the Labour Party, but there are two reasons they will not immediately jump ship. The first is that they will think a Corbyn Leadership is likely to implode and leave the floor clear for a Blairite. If Corbyn doesn't work out, they will surely have won the argument for years as to the future direction of the party. As soon as Corbyn takes the keys to the bus, they will be in the back seat plotting. Whilst many recognise that at the moment a Blairite manifesto is a bridge too far for man, a Corbyn disaster may open the gates in a matter of months or years for a full scale coup. The second is that if Corbyn doesn't collapse and does catch the public imagination, they may get the old ministerial limo's back if they play ball. They will also at least get some sort of opportunity to shape the manifesto of a party of government.

Living in the London Borough of Barnet, there is one issue that cannot be ignored. Corbyn stated that he views Hizbollah and Hamas as friend and this has caused uproar in the local Jewish community. There is a feeling that a Corbyn leadership would destroy Labour locally. My view is that unless they elect a full on Blairite, this damage is already done. I personally find such statements to be ridiculous. I would have thought  that appeasement of such extremists would have long ago been discredited as a strategy for dealing with such organisations. Whatever you may think of Israel, I cannot see how fundamental Islam can be viewed as a positive force in finding a apeace settlement. Hamas and Hizbollah are commited by constitution to the complete annihiliation of Israel and its Jewish residents. I can't see how such a stance can be anything other than destructive.

However The London Borough of Barnet is not the UK and whilst such statements play badly with the local electors, in 99% of seats it will have no effect at all. Had Labour had Corbyn as Leader, I am certain Labour would have more seats than it has now, even if only because they would not have faced Scottish wipeout. I cannot see any circumstances Labour will win a majority in 2020 without a radical rethinl of what they are, who they appeal to and how they conduct their campaigns. In the election in May, most people saw them as irrelevant. They failed to connect with even their core voters. No one knew what Miliband really stood for and he made no case for any policies. At least Corbyn with his policy of abolition of Student loans has shown that he understands that you can't all sing from the same song sheet. It seems we only get a leader who is unafraid to break with a failing consensus once in a blue moon. Will Corbyn be the next Thatcher, a conviction politician, loved and loathed in equal part? I have no idea, but I for one think that any Tories who celebrate should Corbyn win, will live to bitterly regret it, just as all of the Labour Mp's who saw the election of Thatcher as Tory leader in the 70's saw here as "Keith Josephs puppet" and an abberation bitterly lived to regret the fact that they didn't realise people actually trust people who speak their mind and stand up for what they believe.