A long time ago in an era far far away men wore hats. And today, if formal headgear were still in fashion, there would be many a pundit eating theirs.
There’s nothing more surreally satisfying than to have watched an expensively-paid clearly expatriate ‘Visiting Senior Fellow’ (whatever that means) pompously pontificating like a shiny-pated oracle that “Cleary the preferred option in the British elections would be a Conservative majority victory and that’s what I think is going to happen”, the night before nothing less than a seismic result which completely belied that Olympian pronouncement.
If I were a student in his class, I’d rather hope he’s a better historian than commentator.
The last few Labour party leaders have seemed somehow supine, even emasculated in their contortionistic attempts to sound Tory-like without actually having to change party affiliation. Neil Kinnock supressed his natural ebullience and hail-fellow-well-met charisma in a vain attempt to match Margaret Thatcher’s statesperson-like sobriety; Gordon Brown succeeded (if that’s the word) in doing the exact opposite, allowing his Nixonian-like brooding temperament to occasionally escape and Ed Miliband came across as a foppish muppet version of the glib and slick David Cameron.
All are men with innate laudable traits of compassionate intelligence who somehow came across a s being thoroughly uncomfortable in their own skins. Each was convinced that if the voters saw their true political nature they’d lose that election that they ended up losing anyway.
And Donald Trump might twee: Sad!
They are the male Hillary Clintons: never saying what they truly believe for fear of annoying someone, somewhere. Fearing of not looking “presidential” or “prime ministerial.” Not a hint about tax rises. No deviation from the market-tested script written for them by the aides and consultants. He fools no one, least of all themselves.
Authenticity then. Thatcher, like her or not, and even Cameron (who on occasion sounded like a combination of marketing manager and Oxford Union debater) had this. Across the pond, so do Trump and one Bernie Sanders.
Add to that list one more name: Jeremy Corbyn.
One mark of the current Labour leader’s success in a contest that was supposed to be no contest is that he managed to do what he did with none of that. No triangulation. No disavowal of the s-word (socialist!). None of the softly-delivered, yet divisive wedge issues that have become almost mandatory in mainstream politics.
Corbyn went to electoral war with what so many commentators saw as the political equivalent of bringing a banana to a gun fight, saddled as he was with a party manifesto that mounted that most full-throated defence of European social democracy since the disastrous Michael Foot days. He battled through two years of coup attempts from his own parliamentary party and suffered the journalistic equivalent of relentless carpet bombing from the rightwing press (on the eve of the vote he and several shadow cabinet members were essentially called pro-terrorist by some and a mysterious ‘pre-election’ poll publicized purporting to show the Tories with a likely twelve percentage point victory margin).
With an almost zen-like calm reinforced by three decades of conviction borne from experience and a certainty in his views, Corbyn responded with a campaign that talked about bread and butter issues, proclaimed policies that were generally clear (albeit a bit woolly on the costing) and gave the universally accepted hand gesture for “Go take a hike!” by talking over the hostile press. He held old-fashioned open-air rallies, spoke of “fat soul”, “big tent”, inclusive politics that tok square aim at inequity and corporate greed, telling people that yes, we can do better “For the Many, Not the Few” (the party election slogan). In the process an election that started out as a foregone conclusion turned into one of the biggest political upsets ever seen in post-war Britain.
Theresa May’s longevity at 10 Downing Street is now threatened; Boris Johnson and George Osborne are keeping their shivs hidden for the moment but, should there be more discomfort and dislocation, even the famously disloyal Michael Gove might be persuaded to attempt a Tory recreation of the Ides of March. Barring a complete rethink of her style and approach to governance May might find herself as the most problematic and judgement-challenged Conservative leader since, well, David Cameron in 2016: both prime ministers who staked everything on a long bomb to increase their power – only to find their power abruptly switched off by the voters.
On strategic terms, Britain probably does not have enough political stability to actually execute a hard Brexit now. Indeed, given that we are likely to see a plethora of leadership contests (UKIP’s hapless Paul Nuttall is likely just the first to quit) and general election after general election (80% of voters chose the two main parties, with a popular vote difference of two per cent, this marginalizing the smaller parties, whilst perhaps conversely giving the balance of power) it’s not clear just how any government can complete the Article 50 negotiations before the two year period expires.
What’s clear is that, in the same trend as all of the changes since 2016, we have entered a political era in which authenticity is the No 1 quality -- that is the common thread in a political tapestry that interweaves Corbyn to Boris Johnson to Nigel Farage to Donald Trump to Emmanuel Macron and which May so conspicuously lacks. Globally, the public is exhausted with austerity (as it is divided on globalism) -- witness the rapidity by which the London and Manchester terror attacks turned into a furious debate over police funding. After decades of being told they can’t have basic, affordable, reliable social services by which they could secure a stable existence with a minimum of fear, the public have decided to say sod it, we want a government who will at least try to deliver that anyway.
In fairness to Theresa May she captured the Conservative leadership by initially articulating a kinder, gentler ethos more concerned with pocketbook egalitarianism, though lost her way when the Party's image makers sought to make this electoral contest about Brexit and her purported leadership skills. Yet it was Corbyn who captured the mood by just being the same man he's always been and articulating the same views he's always held.
The wheel has turned full circle and British social democracy has come back to where Jeremy Corbyn has always been.