Post Corbyn scenarios

Whatever happens in the labour leadership election, the party will probably never be the same again. There, though, are a number of scenarios that spring to mind. Let’s start by assuming Corbyn wins – not a given especially in view of the recent poor performance of opinion polls, but it looks increasingly likely. What will happen? Here are the possible outcomes: 1. If there are extensive legal challenges to the result. These will drag on for ages and destroy the party making it totally unelectable for a generation. It is really an unthinkable scenario, but it could happen. 2. If the result is accepted there remains the question, how will the Labour MPs react? It seems likely that many of them will simply not follow Corbyn and will not accept him as the parliamentary leader. We then have two Labour Party groups in Parliament. The non-Corbyn group will have to choose a leader and this will be either Burnham or Cooper. 3. If this split continues it might become formalised and we have two main opposition parties. 4. A strong possibility in this circumstance could be negotiations between the non Corbyn Party and the Liberal Democrats. This effectively mirrors the circumstances of the mid 1980s when the Liberal Democrat Party was formed from an alliance between the Liberals and the breakaway Social Democrats. 5. Fast forward to the 2020 election and we have a possibility of two Labour Party’s fighting each other for seats. If they have any sense (not much has been shown so far) they will engage in electoral pacts to avoid them standing against each other in winnable seats. The Corbynites would contest seats in Scotland, the North of England, parts of London and the Midlands, while the non Corbyinites, now joined with the Liberal Democrats would contest the rest of England and Wales on a centrist/centre left ticket. 6. The Conservatives would win such an election, of course (barring strange events in the meantime) but the left of centre would at least have re-aligned itself on rational lines. If Corbyn does not win Labour looks set to drift on towards inevitable defeat in 2020, with a mass of defections among the grass roots membership. What OUGHT to happen if Corbyn does not win, is the party should consider carefully why he has proved to be so popular, in other words undertake a sensible debate about why the Corbyn message chimes with so many people and act on it. I suppose the real problem is that neither the Corbyn plan or the Burnham/Cooper position can win an election. The best Labour can hope for is to shore up its existing support, so the question is which position is most likely to do this. The answer is that, in some places – Scotland and deprived areas of England and Wales – the Corbyn plan would win seats, while in others parts of the North, Midlands and London, it is the centrist position that can win. This suggests two different parties which may well be what happens. Happily for Conservatives and sadly for Labour even this partnership does not add up to more than three hundred seats. The key may lie with the Liberal Democrats. Let’s not write them off yet.

The Corbyn Effect

If nothing else happens in the Labour leadership contest Jeremy Corbyn’s intervention has already had its effect. This is revealed in Andy Burnham’s ‘manifesto’, recently unveiled. We have to believe that such measures as rail nationalisation (albeit gradually), a bigger rise in the minimum wage than even Osborne proposes and the replacement of tuition fees with a graduate tax would not have been on Burnham’s horizon had Corbyn not found such traction with his extreme left agenda. Burnham now looks set to win the contest on second preferences, always assuming that Corbyn can’t make 50% or near on first ballot. The real point is that there is a large constituency which feels unrepresented by the main parties in the UK. That Labour will not win the next election, barring unforeseen disasters for the Government, is not in much doubt, but at least there will at least be a powerful voice in parliament speaking up for the low paid and the young with limited horizons and mountains of debt. In other words Corbyn and now Burnham have learned the SNP lesson.

Why are we surprised by Corbyn's popularity?

It is interesting to see the huge convulsion that Jeremy Corbyn’s ‘charge’ has caused both inside politics and in the media. There seem to be four explanations for the phenomenon. First, The right wing press assume that it is the ‘true’ heart of Labour being revealed after many years of Blairism. In other words, since the early 1990s Labour has only been pretending to be a centrist party. The left, lurking in the unions, in dark corners of urban local government and at the universities, has used the opportunity of Labour’s defeat to reveal itself. This chimes with their obsession with ‘entryism’. Second, the more thoughtful elements in the media, such as Andrew Rawnsley in his excellent article in today’s (August2) Observer, point out that Labour has always been a divided party, between the Blairite centre and the left. The Blairites are perceived to have lost and so party members want the left to have a go. The same happens with the Conservatives. Whenever they lose an election, their right wing gains the ascendancy (look at Howard’s brief leadership). There is a third explanation which comes from the left itself. This suggests that a large proportion of the country is effectively unrepresented when Labour takes up a centrist position. These are union members in traditional industries, people on low paid jobs who have to rely on benefits and the young who see their opportunities to be limited. The prospect of massive postgraduate debt, poor job opportunities and unaffordable housing, inevitable drives this last group into the arms of the left. This group must have been dismayed to hear Labour’s leaders accepting welfare benefit caps, high tuition fees, lukewarm policies on jobs for the young and very modest house building ambitions. In Scotland they had somewhere to go – the SNP - but no such luck in England. Small wonder they are flocking (sorry to use an animal based verb, I hear they are no longer pc) to the Corbyn camp. A fourth explanation comes from all quarters and is that Corbyn is authentic, is principled and says what he believes, while other politicians say what they think the centre ground of the electorate want to hear. Of course Labour used to have such a candidate, but he has, for whatever reason, ruled himself out. That is Alan Johnson. The doom mongers on the left are probably right. Labour cannot win another election for some time to come but it won’t be Corbyn’s fault, it will be caused by the absurd electoral system we use and the paucity of suitable, dominant and charismatic figures from the centre of the party. Even if David Miliband does ride over the horizon to try to pick up the pieces in two or three years time, the damage done to Labour may well be unrepairable. The centre left in British politics is fragmented and the centre right is not. There is no getting away from that. For those who take up a centrist position on politics, there is one crumb of comfort. Now that the Conservatives look set for a long period in power, they are showing every signs of avoiding a lurch to the right, so whether we have a Cameron/Osborne government in the years to come (which now looks a certainty), or a Cooper/Burnham one (which looks very unlikely), most people will not be able to tell the difference. It is the Corbyn constituency that needs to worry.

Is Jeremy Corbyn a marxist?

A nice interview by Andrew Marr with Jeremy Corbyn yesterday. How good to hear a non-confrontational interview, we get so much more information about what the subject believes than with those awful interrogations which only tell us how well a person reacts to pressure. The key moment came at the end when Marr asked Corbyn whether he was a marxist. The answer was, as you would expect, circumspect. Had he said yes it would have been curtains, but Corbyn did not wish to reject his marxist credentials altogether, thus suggesting a degree of honesty not often seen in modern mainstream politics. It was rather like asking a christian whether they are indeed a ‘christian’. Some will say ‘yes’ and then explain that they believe in the literal story of the resurrection and that Christ did die and rise again so that sinners may be saved if they except Christ as their saviour. That is the equivalent of being a pure marxist – that you believe in his historical analysis and the destiny of capitalism to be destroyed by its own creation, the socialist proletariat and that it has not yet occurred is simply a matter of timescale and converting the analysis to a global context. Corbyn did not say that but instead said that Marx had revealed many truths and that we can still learn a great deal from his teaching. This is the equivalent of a ‘christian’ saying they believe in the existence of Christ, that his teaching should be a guide for life but that the resurrection story is only a metaphor, that Christ rose again in the minds of his followers and that we can all be born again if we seek redemption. So I guess this means that Corbyn is not a marxist in the full sense of the word; rather he has received some of his inspiration from marxist analysis. Sadly for him the media and casual observers will not be capable of understanding this distinction. He does have one advantage over others of the left who have been accused of marxist sympathies, such as Ken Livingstone, Derek Hatton and Michael Foot, which is that he seems remarkably affable and accessible. The right no longer has the monopoly of ‘interesting ‘ characters, with Corbyn, Sturgeon and Mhairi Black now on the left scene. Such characters serve to emphasise how pale and uninspiring the other Labour leadership candidates appear.

Labour-looking for a messiah

There seems to be a rather unreal debate going on within the Labour leadership about the Corbyn ‘threat’. I say unreal because it appears obvious to most of us that, barring some kind of Iraq-like event (not out of the question in view of the government’s apparent desire for mission creep over Syria), Labour cannot win any general election for the foreseeable future. Scotland has gone and there seems no way back and the Conservatives now dominate England outside the North. Furthermore, assuming support for UKIP declines after the referendum vote, the Conservative grip over the South and Midlands will be strengthened. In other words the electoral arithmetic now suggests Labour cannot win. As long as the economy continues to grow and the key indicators (with the notable exception of inequality) stay favourable it looks like an increased Conservative majority next time, possibly for a generation. The idea that Labour can win by being a slightly nicer version of the Conservatives is seriously misplaced, so too is the idea that the electorate simply needs an alternative, even if the alternative is virtually identical, like gas or electricity suppliers, in order to satisfy the needs of democracy. No, until there is an opportunity for significant change, Labour looks likely to wander for many years in the Wilderness, like the Israelites except it is hard to imagine where the promised land lies. There is also no sign of a Moses on the horizon. This will leave many in the UK seriously disenfranchised with nobody to represent them. I refer to the poor, to exploited workers and many of the radical young. Jeremy Corbyn does at least offer some sort of programme for them. He can’t win governmental power, but at least their voice might be heard if he leads Labour. Put another way, if labour is going to lose and go on losing it might as well do so with some of its traditional principles intact. There is just one hope for the centre-left. This is that its currently disparate forces could unite. At the moment it is split five ways (Labour, Lib Dem, SNP, Plaid, Green). Such a unification will need a messiah but Corbyn does not like one of those.

Future of the BBC - Too important to be left to politicians.

It is right that there should be review at this time of what the BBC’s future should be, both its funding and its programming. It is also almost certainly true that it is over-bloated and could do with some surgery. Most long standing organisations need this from time to time. But it is such a vital part of British culture and our place in the world that it is far too important to be left in the hands of politicians, most of whom will not still be in power by the time any changes are seen through to maturity. This therefore needs to be the subject of a national debate. Just as a taster I remember a time, perhaps up to the 1980s when many of the BBC’s top performers used to make a joke about how poorly they were paid. ‘Well, what do expect?’ they’d say, ‘This is the BBC.’ Yet they still worked for the beeb and wouldn’t think about going commercial. Rather like doctors who will only work for the NHS when they could earn shedloads in private practice, and many teachers who shun the private system, they worked in public service broadcasting as a matter of principle. I suppose this is still the case, though few ever seem to talk about it. This story has two points. One is that it demonstrates how deeply embedded the concept of public service broadcasting is in our culture; the other is that it is a myth to suppose the huge salaries have to be paid to attract and retain top performers. But back to the main theme. This is not a partisan blog, but I do fear that most politicians currently in power have a default position of arguing that market forces will always ensure better quality and value for money than state-sponsored enterprises. We only have to look at so-called competitive industries such as energy, banking and telecommunications to pick out the holes in that argument. Apply it to the BBC and the result would, I strongly maintain, a disaster. Problem is, the BBC seems recently to have applied it to itself. Whatever the outcome of a hopefully non partisan national debate, I suspect there is a strong consensus that the BBC should not longer try to chase ratings and compete with the commercial stations. So here goes. I shall leave out radio which is largely blameless in this regard (we could have a debate about Radios 1 and 2 I suppose, but they are not the core issue). This is TV only. What should the BBC make or show and what should it not? How about this list: Yes to: • News, comment and current affairs. The reputation of the BBC for honesty, truth and unbiased reporting is absolutely crucial to its future. Look at the USA to observe the dangers. • Documentaries and major investigative journalism (see the first point). • Most sport, even darts. • Film • Theatre and opera • The Arts – programmes showing or broadcasting the arts and music , criticism, comment, educational and documentary. • Music – presentation of all forms of music including pop, rock and avant garde, not videos but live and recorded performance • Pastime shows such as gardening, travel, antiques and cookery (the origins of Top Gear would be OK, but not what it became - a caricature of itself). • Satire and decent comedy (see below) • Intelligent quiz shows such as Pointless, Eggheads, University Challenge • Drama, including one off plays and series, but not soaps. • Natural History, Science, History, Geography, Politics etc. No to: • Soap operas. • Cookery competitions • Reality shows. • Shows concerning buying or doing up houses, moving abroad etc. • Daytime quiz shows for big prizes • Comedy shows reeling round the same old stand up performers time after time. • Trivial panel games and game shows • Sofa programmes being used blatantly as a vehicle for people to publicise their new book/film,/play/TV show • Frivolous chat shows • Antiques competitions • Celebrity competitions • X Factor style shows unless they are genuine talent competitions, not the over-scripted corrupted versions now on offer. The ‘No’ list all belong in the commercial sector. This leaves us with Strictly, a programme I do not watch but I know people love. Now look, there are always going to have to be hard choices and Strictly would be one of them because many people see it as the acme of ‘light entertainment’. The answer is, I suppose, that we should lighten up a bit and let the odd frivolous show through, especially when it is a national institution, just like the BBC itself. So why not let the politicians loose on this lot? The answer is simply that it is just too important and there is a danger that too much ideology would be involved. As the great conservative philosopher, Michael Oakeshott, once commented, ‘politics should be a conversation, not an argument.’ Come to think of it, the future of the BBC is not a political issue, it is a cultural one and the future of British culture, much of which is admired throughout the world, is at stake.

Be careful Nicola!

The SNP is playing a dangerous game and it might just backfire on them. Whatever we think about fox hunting, and it seems true that most people want it stopped or curtailed severely, the SNP’s use of the issue to punish the government for not getting serious enough about devolution may, in the long run, come back to haunt them. If the true reason is, as Sturgeon has intimated, to demonstrate to the government the potential power of the SNP parliamentary wedge, it may just scare voters in Scotland off in the future. The thinkers among such voters may heed Cameron’s charge of opportunism, but others may also come to the conclusion that this a bad use of the landslide the Scots delivered last May. We have to assume that half of Scottish voters supported the SNP for a better deal for Scotland rather than for foxes. They may well resent having their votes thus corrupted. If it is a one-off, a shot across the bows, fair enough, but the surprise element cannot, by definition, be used more than once.