30 July 2020

Diary of a Corbynista

Marcus Rides Again

by Don Urquhart

23 July

There are some parallels with our friends over the pond.

Trump and Johnson are regarded by many in their own countries as beyond the pale.

The crusading opposition Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn have been pushed aside by Biden and Starmer respectively and the new leaders are regarded as more electable than the wild men of the left – so many are supporting the opposition leaders as the best way of winning an election.

On this basis Sanders has committed himself to supporting Biden.

Starmer has comprehensively attacked Corbyn so I guess the former party leader might be diffident about supporting his successor.

24 July

Conversations with centre-left people tell me that they are supporting Starmer because he is a strong leader who will attract centre-left voters.  His actions in paying off the “whistleblowers” of John Ware’s Panorama and apologising to the journalist draw a line under accusations of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party.

They have often told me that I am naive for supporting Jeremy Corbyn.

25 July

It’s all about Agenda.

If you can set the agenda and make sure that’s what people hear about, then you can control their thinking.

A classic example from the past is the Zinoviev letter published by the Daily Mail 4 days before the 1924 election.  It was completely fabricated but the important thing was to plant in people’s minds a link between the Labour Party and communist subversion.

A more recent example is the labour anti-Semitism smear campaign in 2019.  Whatever the facts this was what was lodged in people’s minds by constant repetition in the newspapers and the broadcast media, particularly the BBC.

What brought it to mind was last night’s Newsnight.  There are hundreds of things the Prime Minister should be addressing but there he was in all his plumpness telling us the thing to think about is obesity.  I thought back to March when all we had to do to overcome Coronavirus was to wash our hands.

 26 July

I am still a member of the Labour Party in the hope that Sir Keir Starmer will backtrack and apologise to those of us who worked so hard for Election victory.

There’s no sign of this happening as he is currently throwing the members’ hard-earned at people who campaigned vigorously for a Conservative victory in the last 2 General Elections.

27 July

Marcus Rashford put me onto it.  His initiative succeeded where the official opposition was impotent.  He focussed government and the media on a very specific issue – feeding children over the school holidays, and like D’Artagnan with his rapier hit a weak spot in the Johnsonian armour.

We have been dispersed by the Panzers of the Tory MSM.  Our so-called leaders are now huddled in their own Vichy simulacrum, nodding along or raising the odd legalistic objection to the carnage being wrought by the governing barbarians.

So now, emulating Marcus, we must identify and exploit the weaknesses like picadors, banderilleros or the heroes of the Maquis.

28 July

On Country File, Peter Hughes, a Chichester conservationist had constructed rafts as breeding grounds for common terns which had seen their natural habitats destroyed by human development. It was a very simple, inexpensive intervention which will enable the species to survive. Soon we will have to be as creative to ensure the survival of our own species.

29 July

Panorama chewed over the early days of the Coronavirus pandemic.

There was film of a government spokesperson maintaining that the lockdown was perfectly timed.

Tom Tugendhat, a Conservative MP, conceded:

Governments lie in order to preserve the image of invincibility.

And, of course he was pointing the finger not at his own glorious leaders but at Beijing, a popular target now that our relations with the superpower are down the toilet.