So I was saying to Dan Hardie that every couple of days, I feel relatively optimistic about Labour. Thousands more members sign up. And then either Jeremy Corbyn or John McDonnell does something incredibly strange. Actually, I was literally interrupted at this moment by a notification on my phone, because Ken Livingstone had just done something incredibly strange, by repeatedly insulting Kevan Jones while referring to him as “Jeremy” and futilely trying to outprole the ex-coal miner.
And then we won the tax credits row…until…
This may offend some of my followers, but McDonnell quoting Mao was one of the most politically stupid things I've ever seen #spendingreview
— Corbyn for PM (@Corbyn4nextPM) November 25, 2015
Yes, I know he was trying to make a point about wanting to privatise everything by selling it to some other nation’s nationalised industries. But as they say, if you’re explaining you’re losing. And if you’re explaining why you chucked a copy of the thoughts of Mao Zedong across the despatch box…well. I mean, it’s the sort of thing I’d do.
On this occasion, thanks to @simonk133’s Twitter feed, I was able to time the bipolar cycle from victory, to doing something incredibly strange, at exactly 23 minutes. We’ve managed to get this from 24 hours or so in October, down to the same time in minutes. A 60x improvement. It’s like Toyota production, for pratfalls.
The rightie term about ‘humourless lefties’ does seem to me to be the biggest case of projection of all time.
That said, I am finding it increasingly hard to keep track of current affairs from the brief yet incredibly annoying news bulletins on Radio 3 and reverse engineering Twitter and the Daily Mash.
Meanwhile we have a second Enterprise Zone, the ‘Didcot Growth Accelerator’ (hashtag #southernpowerhouse)
I’m pretty sure that “The Didcot Growth Accelerator” was a Goon Show episode title.
I thought that was Culham, and it really is an accelerator?
Catching up on Twitter, as I did this evening when I got in, was depressing – I scrolled back a few hours to a thin but rich stratum of “McDonnell’s making some good points” and “Tories not liking this”, which was promptly buried under a Pompeian layer of MAO!, three hours deep and rising. After a while, of course, it was all about the running gag – I couldn’t tell how much of it had originated as (a) “why did he have to spoil a perfectly good speech with that?”, how much as (b) “aha! Communist McDonnell shows his true disgraceful colours!” and how much as (c) “I know damn well that (b) is ridiculous, but I’m going to say it anyway”. There was a fair bit of (c), I think
But c) isn’t very good! If it’s c), he’s basically just a troll, playing at politicianing for the lulz.
Also, I’d point out that the real achievement of getting his campaign from zero to 60 in nothing much, winning, and signing up more new members than there are Tories redounds about 100% to Jeremy Corbyn’s credit (and Simon Fletcher’s), and 0% to John McDonnell’s, who turned up after it was all over with his hand out.
I didn’t know much about McDonnell when he was appointed. The set of advisors recruited made me pretty happy, because the exclusion of people like Mazzucato was one of my biggest complaints about New Labour.
Yet, politics isn’t just ideas. And McDonnell seems not to present well. And let’s face it, it’s a battle to get the press to take Corbyn seriously. It would help if the Shadow Chancellor (who is most often going up against GOsborne, the heir apparent) was slicker.
The bit that depresses me is that I have no idea who that might be.
Don’t follow – (c) is Chuka & co’s reaction, not McDonnell’s strategy. I agree that it’s disgraceful, mind you.