{"id":409,"date":"2015-08-02T20:27:25","date_gmt":"2015-08-02T20:27:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/?p=409"},"modified":"2015-08-02T20:27:25","modified_gmt":"2015-08-02T20:27:25","slug":"from-out-of-nowhere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/from-out-of-nowhere\/","title":{"rendered":"From out of nowhere"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Jeremy<\/a>

Jeremy Corbyn and Tony Blair.<\/p><\/div>\n

Momentum is building \u2014 Jeremy Corbyn could be the next leader of the Labour Party<\/h4>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not about an individual, it\u2019s about a platform that, in the end, wouldn\u2019t work for the country. When people say \u2018My heart says I should be with that politics,\u2019 well… get a transplant.\u201d<\/p>\n

The words of former British prime minister Tony Blair, a week ago, as he tried to sway the voters who will choose the next Labour leader away from the rising star that is Jeremy Corbyn.<\/p>\n

Warning the party could only win an election from centreground, Blair was reacting to a \u201cshock\u201d poll that put Corbyn with a whopping 17-point lead over his nearest rivals.<\/p>\n

Corbyn, a virtual unknown until a few months ago, is currently storming through his meet-and-greets and photo-ops, charming the general public. And that word \u2014 charm \u2014 is apt, there is a real charm to his public appearances; he supports his policies, he genuinely seems to be saying what he believes and he has yet to be smoothed out enough by spin doctors to have stop wearing his \u00a31.50 vests from the local market and socks with sandals. Some days he even wears a jaunty 1950s-gentlemen-on-vacation-style hat.<\/p>\n

As if the attack by Blair, the inevitable \u201cSexyJezza\u201d hashtag and the incessant \u201cleftie,\u201d \u201chardline left-winger\u201d and \u201cMarxist\u201d labels in The Sun<\/em> and Daily Mail<\/em> tabloids weren\u2019t enough of a sign that he has made it, this week Corbyn won the key backing of major unions.<\/p>\n

Unite, Aslef, Fire-Brigades Union, the Communication Workers Union, Transport Salaried Staffs Association, the RMT and Britain\u2019s biggest public sector union, Unison, have all urged members to support him. Momentum is truly building.<\/p>\n

\u201cJeremy Corbyn could be Labour\u2019s next leader. Until a few weeks ago I never imagined I would write such a sentence,\u201d president of the YouGov polling company, Peter Kellner, said recently.
\nWhether Corbyn is a practical candidate for a general election is becoming beside the point. The next election is years away, he is the frontrunner and he is in command \u2014 Yvette Cooper, Andy Burnham and Liz Kendall are struggling to keep up.<\/p>\n

\u201cJeremy Corbyn could be Labour\u2019s next leader. Until a few weeks ago I never imagined I would write such a sentence.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What is apparent, from seeing the welcome Corbyn has received this week at events, is that he is tapping into real anger at austerity measures and a sense of social injustice, as the Scottish National Party did in the last general election and parties like Syriza and Podemos have elsewhere in Europe.<\/p>\n

Many of those at Corbyn\u2019s events would\u2019ve been disgusted, for example, by the party\u2019s support on July 21 for the Tory government\u2019s bill establishing \u00a312-billion-worth of welfare cuts. Despite a whip, 48 of Labour\u2019s 216 MPs still rebelled, showing just how split the party is. Surely a traditional \u201cLabour\u201d party would have rejected such drastic measures?<\/p>\n

Despite all the leadership talk, the bigger issue here for Labour, with its leadership contest, is that it has trapped itself in stasis just when the British public needs an effective opposition the most. The party, despite the unions all plumping for Corbyn, is anything but united. Should Corbyn win, he will face many challenges ahead.<\/p>\n

@URLgoeshere<\/em><\/p>\n

Originally published in the Buenos Aires Herald<\/span><\/a><\/span>, on Sunday, August\u00a02, 2015.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Link: http:\/\/www.buenosairesherald.com\/article\/195433\/from-out-of-nowhere-<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Momentum is building \u2014 Jeremy Corbyn could be the next leader of the Labour Party \u201cIt\u2019s not about an individual, it\u2019s about a platform that, in the end, wouldn\u2019t work for the country. When people say \u2018My heart says I should be with that politics,\u2019 well… get a transplant.\u201d The words of former British prime […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":411,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,38,39,37,42,248,275,41,64,490,99],"tags":[516,291,495,102,50,491,186,493,496,256,492,150,44,473,188,494,192,121,498,497],"class_list":["post-409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-britain","category-buenos-aires-herald","category-comment","category-journalism","category-media","category-media-2","category-perceptions","category-politics","category-thoughts-2","category-unions","category-world","tag-britain","tag-campaign","tag-conservative","tag-government","tag-james-grainger","tag-jeremy-corbyn","tag-labour","tag-leader","tag-left-wing","tag-media","tag-perspectives","tag-podemos","tag-politics-2","tag-syriza","tag-tony-blair","tag-tory","tag-uk","tag-unions","tag-unison","tag-unite"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=409"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":412,"href":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409\/revisions\/412"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}