The news that left-wing Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn draws inspiration from the 1980s will come as no surprise to followers of British politics. It was, however, quite special to discover that some of his conference speech this week was actually written in the days of Bananarama and Frankie Goes To Hollywood.
According to press reports, the north London socialist had drawn on text from a speechwriter who'd touted the same blurb to every party boss since Neil Kinnock, only to have it rejected.
It's difficult to imagine the conversation between Corbyn and his aides, isn't it?
'We've found the perfect form of words here, boss.'
'Excellent. Can you feed them into this new-fangled autocue thing?'
'Well, there are a couple of problems.'
'What do you mean?'
'Well, first of all, it's in Wordstar. And second, we can't find anything to read the five-inch floppy.'
Richard Heller posted the text below a few days ago. Now this would have gone down well in Brighton.
ReplyDelete"It was gracious of Peter Mandelson to admit that New Labour bears some responsibility for Jeremy Corbyn’s victory. [His article September 13, “I’m partly to blame for this mess but let’s fight back to win back Labour”]
Tony Blair led the Labour party the way Basil Fawlty ran his hotel on Gourmet Night, insulting and abusing the long-stay residents in the hope of attracting a better clientèle. He and his acolytes maintained this approach in a decade of unbroken arrogance and condescension towards party critics. Our doubts were dismissed as childish or spiteful. We were told repeatedly that New Labour’s outlook and policies were the only possible path for Labour in government and the only alternative to the Hard Left nincompoopery and electoral carnage of the 1980s.
It is especially galling to be lectured in this way by people who left frontline British politics to make money.
The guests in Fawlty Towers eventually revolted. Labour supporters have done the same.