George Eaton concluded his article with the
statement that many feel that "Labour has regressed several decades in the space
of a few weeks", but it is quite obvious that many more think the party may be
coming to its senses (The Politics Column,34July). The view from the pressbox,
generally, is that a Corbyn-led Labour party has no chance of electoral success,
using as evidence the mistaken view that the "suicide note" manifesto of 1983
was solely to blame for the party`s election defeat that year. Other equally
significant reasons, like the Falklands effect boosting Thatcher`s support, the
personal hatchet-job done on Michael Foot by the right-wing press, and the
effects of the Labour/SDP split, are all conveniently ignored. The result is
that the Blairite propaganda against Corbyn`s more radical proposals is being
used to sway voters towards the other centre-right candidates.
Nowhere is this illustrated more clearly than in
the You-Gov poll, which Eaton uses to make his case against Corbyn. Not content
with surveying voting intentions, the poll asked about the importance of the
leader understanding "what it takes to win". The reason for such a leading
question`s inclusion in a poll of party members can only be to create further
ammunition for the anti-Corbyn propaganda campaign about a left-wing Labour
party`s unelectability!
It is evidently not just Corbyn`s "ideological
distinctiveness" which is causing him to lead the race, as Eaton suggests. His
policies are neither "hard left" nor "revolutionary", like many on the right
claim, but they do offer, to a vast majority of the population, opportunities
for change and hope, and an end to a society based on unfairness and injustice.
Isn`t that what a Labour leader is meant to do?
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