Beware The Corbyn Factor

In recent weeks Jeremy Corbyn has gained the kind of publicity of which a rock star would be proud. Just recently we saw a huge number of "Corbyn-For-Prime-Minister" supporters queuing hundreds of yards down the street to get to hear him speak, and it seems likely that the same thing will happen when he visits Norwich (my home city) tonight. With no small irony, the lengthy queuing these supporters are enduring will be something they'll have to get used to if, heaven forbid, Corbyn ever did become Prime Minister and impose his economically illiterate policies on our nation (of which, doubtlessly, more in future blogs) - because with him in power there will be queues outside the job centre like you've never seen before.

Corbyn is picking up advocates through his courage to speak frankly, through his willingness to stand up for his principles and go against the party leadership when he disagrees, and for his ability to offer something very different from the usual Westminster careerist public relations ministers to which we've become so accustomed. But it's foolish to think that offering something different is equivalent to offering something better. Riots are something different to the everyday peace of our streets, but they do not constitute an improvement on the proceedings. Faith schools that teach anti-science rubbish are something different to the standard school curriculum, but again they do not constitute an improvement.

The same is true of Corbyn - he may be offering something radically different, but only in the same way that a restaurant might offer their customers something different by serving food out of the bins in the area. Nice and likeable guy that Corbyn is, one just can't avoid pointing out that he is trying to administer poison to credulous citizens by pretending it is medicine and convincing them they are ill.