Jeremy Corbyn at the Sky/Channel 4 election debate, fair use.Jeremy Corbyn didn’t just survive Monday night’s Battle for Number 10, he thrived on the audience’s questions and on Jeremy Paxman’s futile attempt to get him to admit that he wished Labour’s manifesto was more like the Communist Manifesto. Corbyn’s performance brought him accolades from a very wide range of people, including Nigel Farage and Douglas Carswell on the Brexit right as well as some liberal commentators, like Jonathan Freedland and Alistair Campbell, who have done so much to de-legitimise Corbyn’s leadership. Should we be surprised by both the performance and the reaction?
Europe’s high opinion of itself has left it blind to why many people end up going there.
Men and women wait to disembark a navy transport at the port of Messina, on the island of Sicily, on 17 April 2017. NurPhoto/SIPA USA/PA Images. All rights reserved.
British politics is messed up. Brexit shows it.The previous PM Cameron promised an in-or-out of the EU referendum back in 2013 if the Conservatives won the General Election, despite the fact that EU matters were considered rather unimportant by voters at that time.
A fresh approach to security and austerity highlights the choice for Britain’s voters.
“Game on”: Corbyn delivers a stump speech in Croydon. Dominic Lipinski/PA Images. All rights reserved.The previous article in this series, published a week ago, examined the idea that something was happening in the United Kingdom’s general-election campaign that was not being picked up by the great majority of analysts. The consensus at the time was that Theresa May was heading for a landslide victory on 8 June against a divided Labour Party led by the hopeless Jeremy Corbyn, who had been the subject of bitter and persistent rubbishing by large sections of the print media (see “The Corbyn crowd and its message“, 18 May 2017).
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