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I think the last paragraph of this accurately summed up the Labour party recently :http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/until-corbyn-led-the-labour-party-we-were-all-wonderfully-polite-a6777416.html
Compared with moderately united opposition parties of the past, Labour's performance at the recent elections wasn't great, but to make that comparison is to ignore Corbyn's entire story. The PLP wanted to keep trying the tory-lite course which was such a failure at the last election, but in a moment of heady idealism they'd accidentally allowed a bit of genuine democracy into the leader selection process, so ended up with someone who has a lot of genuine support outside the westminster bubble. Both the PLP and the media are stuck complaining ever more loudly that Corbyn is doing 'tory-lite' really badly, never daring to even mention what his actual goals might be, get out of Westminster to see what real people might make of them, and judge him on that.
So i can see why people are angry, and it's sad that some of them are misogynists (who i utterly deplore), and i can see why that's the only newsworthy aspect of this when you're looking out from inside the Westminster bubble, or from anywhere on the right. I fear that 'Corbyn supporters are nutters' will become a self-reinforcing media meme that swamps the good and genuine intentions of many who voted for him.
As David Graeber has complained: the right well knows that you have to make space for your extremists because they make space for the moderates. The left turns on its extremists as traitors and so the Overton window shifts ever rightwards and even moderate leftists find themselves in the darkness of media incredulity.
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moth
@Ratty
I really don't get the Corbyn mob. They appear completely unable to accept any kind of criticism without resorting to abuse and fucking petitions. Have any of them actually watched the BBC footage in question? It is merely a discussion about the results of the elections.
The results for Labour were appalling by anyone's standards. Labour were obliterated in Scotland and finished in third. Corbyn became the first opposition leader for 50 years to lose seats at his first local elections. The shadow cabinet were constantly in the news describing the results as a disappointment and that the party is well on course to lose the next general election. No matter the spin, these would be terrible results at any time, let alone in the context of Tory moves on the NHS, disability benefits, academies, warring over Europe etc...
Can these facts not be reported without the journalist in question being called every name under the sun?