Hypocrisy of those who’ll support policies – until they see who’s behind them
Jeremy Corbyn: It seems people love his policies but can’t bring themselves to support the man who would enact them. How mad is that?
This is what some of us are really fighting.
In advance of an expected win by Jeremy Corbyn in the Labour leadership election, BBC1’s The One Show put former Tory MP Giles Brandreth on the streets of… Guildford, I think… where he asked passers-by if they supported certain political policies.
Those who did (at least, those shown on the programme) were then shocked to discover that they were supporters of Mr Corbyn’s policies.
And what did they do?
They backed away, that’s what. Did everything they could to distance themselves from him. It was the biggest display of stupidity This Writer has seen since the result of the general election.
They support the man’s policies. Nobody else is going to enact them. So how do they think those policies are going to come into being if they don’t support the man himself?
Until enough people realise that, the only change we’ll be seeing is for the worse.
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The same idiots who voted the torys back in ?
I agree.
I’d say I was surprised, but sadly I’m not… Corbyn is branded a Communist, terrorist loving, dictator-hugging, loonie – so no-one wants to be tarred with his brush.
The conservatives are presented also as being the grown up party, and the Labour party as the teenage tantrum throwing party. Voting Tory is responsible – voting labour is idealistic.
I could be generalising – but that seems to be the impression I get from people I know who vote Conservative.
It can be seen on the BBC i player still – it’s about four minutes in.
The strangest one who was the woman who favoured a fully stated-funded NHS, higher taxes and scrapping uni fees, but was surprised to discover these were Corbyn policies (was she seriously expecting Brandeth to produce Cameron’s photo?)
Incidentally Corbyn’s policy of linking private rents to local average earning sounds like a bloody good idea.
There is a certain amount of snobbery to be taken into account. It’s unbelievable but they have been pre-programmed like sheeple into believing in a pre-conceived dogma so entrenched in their dull witted psyche they cannot assimilate anything that might contradict who and what they believe themselves to be. The policies advocated by JC are not leftist but they are reasoned and well thought out offering a better way than what is currently on offer with either Labour or Tory and yet the mere mention of his name is shock horror because the corporate owned media has portrayed him as a leftie. To most people that means commie not the Labour values of the pre Blairite era in which the party was hi-jacked by elitist power grabbing neoliberals. Just basic centrist policies, it might seem pathetic but snobbery is something lot of people “do” well. Much better to look down their noses at someone than be among their ranks, even though that is exactly where they are. We used to call it “keeping up with the Jones’s”. Risible and laughable but sadly evidenced by the fact that so many practice it, even if it makes them the butt of many jokes.
I think we need to look further than just criticising people for hypocrisy and stupidity. WHY do they react that way? When Corbynite policies are presented to average Guildfordians by a known Conservative, they seem reasonable and acceptable. So why do they back off when they hear it’s a Corbyn policy? Because they’ve already been conditioned by the Tory media to think of Corbyn as a dangerous left-wing lunatic, someone who is antithetical to their values and who is intent on destroying their way of life – a class enemy. The middle class BELIEVE that the Tories represent their values and Labour are opposed to them. In fact, in many cases the opposite is true. What we need to do is bring about a revolution in their understanding. How, of course, is the major issue.
As none of that contradicts what I was saying, I agree with you.
I think one of the problems is the way many working class people, particularly the self-employed small business people, see themselves in terms of their perceived class affiliations. Many fail to grasp the fact that class is an objective concept as opposed to a subjective one. Consequently, they associate their class position to things like lifestyle, occupation and material status, rather than their relationship to the means of production and power.
The Tories and media anti-Labour propaganda and smears have fooled most people into thinking that Labour caused the financial crisis and should never again be allowed to hold power. The BBC knows that any criticism of the Tory “One Government Nation” will lead instantly to its demise. In the old Soviet Union days the Party line was everything, but people learned not to trust any information in papers or on TV. Many British people are sleep-walking through some of the worst abuses of our democracy and accountability ever.
Is it hypocrisy or just that they believe the bull**** they are fed by the media. Most people still believe what they see on the TV.
Just another example of Socrates’ “thick thousands”
Sincere types? I don’t think so as they sound very Tory-like to me; the sort which would originally have sought help from a leader like Jeremy but who now find themselves not wanting to pay their fair share of taxation.
Thus displaying why so much politics is about personal attacks: they work. Unfortunately.
Agree very strange behaviour , is it not the case these particular individuals have sapped up the propaganda launched against Corbyn since his appearance on our screens.
If I am honest I had never heard of him but would not write him off until I researched a little more about his background, beliefs, and his intentions.
So far I could no way decry this man as his policies and good intentions are what the majority are craving for and would naturally support him.
I now understand is it has turned me against the other contenders as they are not getting the picture, they are on a different planet and in no way representative of true Labour.
As you so rightly say Mike a level of stupidity or just plain ignorance, I do feel the media have a lot to answer for.
There’s a very good reason for that. He has a lot of policies that are excellent for the country but he personally has said he wants to bring terrorists to the House of Commons. I can’t vote for him on that basis.
The only reason the so-called ‘Troubles’ in Northern Ireland ended was because Labour politicians opened up a dialogue with the terrorists there. It took a long time and a lot of discussion, but we ended up with peace. That would not have happened if nobody had opened up a discussion with them.
Anyway, what terrorists do you mean? And did Corbyn actually say that – or did you just read it in The Torygraph, or some similar smear-aholic rag?
do you have the clip?
I’m afraid not, but if the BBC puts The One Show on iPlayer it’ll be there.
One can never be too stupid to vote tory. Look at the state of the NHS in the tory voting south of England.
the NHS is in a BAD STATE THROUGHOUT THE UK,,, why differentiate between south and north? we too have stupid tory voters up here you know.its not JUST a southern problem,
The contradictory consiousness of vast swathes of the working class is the biggest barrier to progressive change. It’s hard enough as it is trying to battle against the Tories without dumb idiots doing their job for them.
What that very interesting piece of journalism showed me is that almost everyone, including the shire Tories, shares the same view of the desirability social justice and fairness in society. The real differences lie in how it is achieved.
If Jeremy can show me how his ideas can be implemented as policies that would achieve social justice without taking the UK back to the dark (because the lights were out), “sick man of Europe” days of the 1970’s that I lived through, I’d vote for him. Unfortunately, while I’m sure that Jeremy is an extremely sincere, brutally honest, nice man, I’m also sure, like the Tories of Guildford, that he has not the faintest grasp of how economics really works.
I was a trade union rep and went on strike in ’79 (I was a government scientist, no-one noticed because of all of the more economically-damaging strikes at the time). Now I’m a serial entrepreneur. I know about failure and how difficult success is in global markets. We have employed many people and had to let some of them go too. We would have had to let them all go and shutter the business if the UK hadn’t bailed out the banks. Every £1 back on their balance sheet is £10 in lending that can be maintained. So I have a good idea of how business works and what damage bad policies can do to workers as well as businesses and the economy.
There are policies I’d support, like capital gains tax on the difference between purchase and sales price of a house, despite the fact that it would hurt me as a homeowner. It would end at a stroke crazy house price inflation. It would also hurt a lot of labour voters – how much courage does Jeremy really have?
From this comment, I’m not entirely sure that you know how economics works. Where you say every £1 on a bank’s balance sheet is £10 in lending that can be maintained, you are mistaken. The banks believed that, back before the crash, but it turned out they were wrong. They could not maintain that amount of lending; this is why they crashed and had to be bailed out.
I’m glad you agree that the UK had to bail out its banks. While contradicting your claims about lending, it at least shows that you don’t follow the Tory line.
On the strength of this comment, though, I won’t be agreeing with you about Jeremy Corbyn’s understanding of economics.
Unfortunately for you and Jeremy, it’s you that doesn’t understand banking or what happened. The banks that crashed (not all did) did so because their balance sheets were loaded with AAA-rated securities (collateralized debt obligations or CDOs) that, when the lack of security of the underlying collateral (mortgages) was exposed, became impossible to assign a value to (not worthless, just impossible to price). Under ‘mark to market’ rules their balance sheet value became zero, and the banks liquidity ratios (set under the Basel agreement) meant that they could lend no more and had to acquire government bonds to replace the CDOs so that they could operate. Blame truly lies with the merchant banks that created the CDOs and the ratings agencies that colluded to give them AAA ratings, not the high street banks.
I suggest you and your chums read Tim Harfords “The Undercover Economist Strikes Back” before trying to persuade anyone that you know how to run an economy. It’s very accessible and totally non-partisan.
But what you’re saying here is exactly the same as what I said in the first place – but with a few bits of jargon thrown in to make it look complicated!
As for reading anything by Tim Harford – after listening to his ridiculous More or Less piece on the incapacity benefit deaths, it’ll be a long time before I’ll accept anything he suggests at face value.
Discussion about what happened in the economic crisis has been going on around here for a considerable amount of time. Don’t go thinking you can pull the wool over anybody’s eyes with a bit of flowery language.
For clarity, what Mr Foale here is saying – stripped of the jargon – is that these banks had invested too much of their capital into bad debts and did not have the wherewithal to bail themselves out. That’s what happens when your debts total nine times as much as your assets (or more) and that’s why there have been moves to force the banks to keep greater sums of money in reserve, against the prospect of a similar event in the future.
That is, of course, exactly what I was saying in my earlier comment.
The public are like sheep! Easy to lead! These tory views come from only three right news paper owners! If you could call them news papers! More like propaganda opinion!
Technically correct on debt, and completely missing the point. you can choose what particular level of debt you like or not. The point was that hiding the risk of the debt repayment is extremely bad because of leverage effects.
Renationalizing the banks? If it ever looked like Labour would get in then that would crash the economy overnight – and not one single bank would remain headquartered in the UK. Try
renationalizing those.