The establishment is rattled, not so much that they believe Jeremy Corbyn will win the general election, but that the circumstances might arise where he leads a minority administration and gets the keys to Downing Street. The Tories have a substantial lead in the opinion polls, but Corbyn appears to be edging up. The establishment don't like it. It makes them nervous. The wealthiest are threatening to leave, just as Corbyn challenges their ascendancy.
The wealthiest are called 'wealth creators', the poorest are called...well we can leave that to the Tories, but remember the division they tried to create between 'strivers' and 'skivers'?
It is, of course, the Tories who are 'unfit' to govern because they don't govern for everyone. They are happy to keep in place a system where inequality and poverty benefit the wealthiest. That is now the establishment.
If Corbyn edges up in the polls, the more likely it is that demographic differences will produce a hung parliament and the possibility that Corbyn becomes Prime Minister supported by the SNP on a supply basis.
Even Mr Blair comes out to suggest that this would be a disaster! A former Labour Prime Minister reduced to advising voters not to vote for his former party, and all because Corbyn dares to challenge the 'unchallengeable'. Corbyn should, of course, be wining and dining out with the likes of Rupert Murdoch and pointing out that it doesn't matter how rich the wealthiest become, it is good for the poorest because the can get more benefits and better job prospect. Growth is good.
Mr Blair calls Jeremy Corbyn a 'populist'. That is an odd thing to call someone who seems to be decidedly unpopular! It is also odd calling Corbyn a populist when he has stuck fairly faithfully to his beliefs even when they had been discarded by most voters, and certainly by New Labour.
If Corbyn is now a populist it is because, after nine years of austerity with crumbling social infrastructure, an NHS in crisis, social care collapsing, underfunded children's services and schools, with child poverty increasing, with pensioner poverty increasing, with hard-working families forced to rely on food banks, after all that, many are crying out for change. Some have mistakenly turned to Brexit, but others see in truth in Corbyn's narrative.
No, Mr Blair, Corbyn is not a populist. He doesn't say what he says because it is popular. He says it because he believes it is right.
If it were to happen, Jeremy Corbyn will be the first anti-establishment British Prime Minister, certainly since Harold Wilson in the 1960s. He would be the first since Wilson and Callaghan not to believe that unfettered markets can somehow create justice. His freedom is, like Wilson's, the freedom from want.
Corbyn puts using our strength as a society to help all, to ensure that all have a chance of a decent education and opportunities, fair housing free from extortionate rents, to ensure that our communities are supported and safe. That there is such a thing as society.
Unfettered markets and global trade are destroying our planet. That is not a populist thing to say, it is self-evident. But it challenges the existing order. It challenges the way things are done.
In 1964 I left school and started work in a brach of the Home Office. Most of my superiours greeted with alarm Harold Wilson's narrow win that October. My immediate superior informed me that Wilson would 'bankrupt the country' just as Labour had done under Attlee.
Attlee, of course, had done no such thing. On the contrary, Labour governments we now know are historically more likely to balance the books and reduce the national debt. That is what Attlee's administration managed to do. It managed a huge investment in building the welfare state, and yet the National Debt accumulated in fighting the war came down over the decades that followed. The welfare state did not bankrupt the country. On the contrary, as the Tory Prime Minister Harold MacMillan told us 'we had 'never had it so good'.
Building houses and schools, tearing down the slums, free school meals, a health service free at the point of need, all these things gave a generation, my generation, the start in life they needed and created better opportunities.
There is now a need to do something similar for a new generation. It is time once again that we had a government willing to wage war on want and child poverty.
We will be told that all this is unaffordable. But that is what was also said when the welfare state was set up after the second world war. Not only was it affordable, but the economy also grew, tax revenues increased, and budget deficits fell. Businesses benefited because new consumers were created, workers with the skills they needed. It isn't spending; it is a social investment in all our futures.
But it challenges the social order. And that is the problem.
Jeremy Corbyn just 'isn't one of them'. In many ways, Tony Blair was and is one of them. For all its achievements, and there were many, New Labour offered little real threat to the established order. It became the party of choice for the establishment.
Thus it is that key establishment figures are out today focussing their attacks, not on Boris Johnson, but on Jeremy Corbyn. He is, they tell us, 'unfit to be Prime Minister'. In other words, 'he isn't one of us'. He is 'unfit' because he dares challenge the neoliberal market mythologies. And this is a problem even with Brexit.
So, former Tory Michael Helsitine continues the 'attack Corbyn' theme adopted by some who have led the Remain campaign. It is part of the order of things. When push comes to shove, some of these Remainers would rather have Boris with his wings clipped, than Jeremy Corbyn.
The attack Corbyn tactic is symptomatic of the shambles of the Remain camp. It is one reason the Remain tactics have been so appallingly bad, missing so many chances to coalesce in parliament to prevent Brexit and push for another referendum. Part of this was their reluctance to back Corbyn. Had they done so, we would not now be in the situation we are in.
The only party leader offering a people's vote definitively is Labour. The Liberal Democrats would revoke article 50 regardless.
Heseltine says Corbyn won't be Prime Minister. So, in some twisted logic, he wants Remainers to vote Liberal Democrat!
Yet, without the cooperation of Labour, his vote for the Liberal Democrats will be worthless in stopping Brexit. The only way to do that is to elect a Labour government. There is no guarantee that another hung parliament would do the trick.
The People's Vote campaign has turned into a shambles and its tactics were and are wrong. They should have made up their minds that a people's vote was more important than remain and focused their attention on achieving it.
Instead, they entrenched in remain at all costs and set about attacking Corbyn.
If there is to be a people's vote on Brexit. The only hope for that is that Labour does sufficiently well in the general election to stop Boris.
To unite and heal the country it is necessary to win the minds Leavers for a people's vote.
Indeed, the choice in the general election is either Boris Johnson or Jeremy Corbyn. This is why the establishment will now throw everything they have to stop Corbyn.
Boris, for all his lies and deceit, is acceptable - a lovable rogue? Perhaps it is because he went to Eton and Oxbridge. It certainly can't be his way with and attitude to women.
The wealthiest are called 'wealth creators', the poorest are called...well we can leave that to the Tories, but remember the division they tried to create between 'strivers' and 'skivers'?
It is, of course, the Tories who are 'unfit' to govern because they don't govern for everyone. They are happy to keep in place a system where inequality and poverty benefit the wealthiest. That is now the establishment.
If Corbyn edges up in the polls, the more likely it is that demographic differences will produce a hung parliament and the possibility that Corbyn becomes Prime Minister supported by the SNP on a supply basis.
Even Mr Blair comes out to suggest that this would be a disaster! A former Labour Prime Minister reduced to advising voters not to vote for his former party, and all because Corbyn dares to challenge the 'unchallengeable'. Corbyn should, of course, be wining and dining out with the likes of Rupert Murdoch and pointing out that it doesn't matter how rich the wealthiest become, it is good for the poorest because the can get more benefits and better job prospect. Growth is good.
Mr Blair calls Jeremy Corbyn a 'populist'. That is an odd thing to call someone who seems to be decidedly unpopular! It is also odd calling Corbyn a populist when he has stuck fairly faithfully to his beliefs even when they had been discarded by most voters, and certainly by New Labour.
If Corbyn is now a populist it is because, after nine years of austerity with crumbling social infrastructure, an NHS in crisis, social care collapsing, underfunded children's services and schools, with child poverty increasing, with pensioner poverty increasing, with hard-working families forced to rely on food banks, after all that, many are crying out for change. Some have mistakenly turned to Brexit, but others see in truth in Corbyn's narrative.
No, Mr Blair, Corbyn is not a populist. He doesn't say what he says because it is popular. He says it because he believes it is right.
If it were to happen, Jeremy Corbyn will be the first anti-establishment British Prime Minister, certainly since Harold Wilson in the 1960s. He would be the first since Wilson and Callaghan not to believe that unfettered markets can somehow create justice. His freedom is, like Wilson's, the freedom from want.
Corbyn puts using our strength as a society to help all, to ensure that all have a chance of a decent education and opportunities, fair housing free from extortionate rents, to ensure that our communities are supported and safe. That there is such a thing as society.
Unfettered markets and global trade are destroying our planet. That is not a populist thing to say, it is self-evident. But it challenges the existing order. It challenges the way things are done.
In 1964 I left school and started work in a brach of the Home Office. Most of my superiours greeted with alarm Harold Wilson's narrow win that October. My immediate superior informed me that Wilson would 'bankrupt the country' just as Labour had done under Attlee.
Attlee, of course, had done no such thing. On the contrary, Labour governments we now know are historically more likely to balance the books and reduce the national debt. That is what Attlee's administration managed to do. It managed a huge investment in building the welfare state, and yet the National Debt accumulated in fighting the war came down over the decades that followed. The welfare state did not bankrupt the country. On the contrary, as the Tory Prime Minister Harold MacMillan told us 'we had 'never had it so good'.
Building houses and schools, tearing down the slums, free school meals, a health service free at the point of need, all these things gave a generation, my generation, the start in life they needed and created better opportunities.
There is now a need to do something similar for a new generation. It is time once again that we had a government willing to wage war on want and child poverty.
We will be told that all this is unaffordable. But that is what was also said when the welfare state was set up after the second world war. Not only was it affordable, but the economy also grew, tax revenues increased, and budget deficits fell. Businesses benefited because new consumers were created, workers with the skills they needed. It isn't spending; it is a social investment in all our futures.
But it challenges the social order. And that is the problem.
Jeremy Corbyn just 'isn't one of them'. In many ways, Tony Blair was and is one of them. For all its achievements, and there were many, New Labour offered little real threat to the established order. It became the party of choice for the establishment.
Thus it is that key establishment figures are out today focussing their attacks, not on Boris Johnson, but on Jeremy Corbyn. He is, they tell us, 'unfit to be Prime Minister'. In other words, 'he isn't one of us'. He is 'unfit' because he dares challenge the neoliberal market mythologies. And this is a problem even with Brexit.
So, former Tory Michael Helsitine continues the 'attack Corbyn' theme adopted by some who have led the Remain campaign. It is part of the order of things. When push comes to shove, some of these Remainers would rather have Boris with his wings clipped, than Jeremy Corbyn.
The attack Corbyn tactic is symptomatic of the shambles of the Remain camp. It is one reason the Remain tactics have been so appallingly bad, missing so many chances to coalesce in parliament to prevent Brexit and push for another referendum. Part of this was their reluctance to back Corbyn. Had they done so, we would not now be in the situation we are in.
The only party leader offering a people's vote definitively is Labour. The Liberal Democrats would revoke article 50 regardless.
Heseltine says Corbyn won't be Prime Minister. So, in some twisted logic, he wants Remainers to vote Liberal Democrat!
Yet, without the cooperation of Labour, his vote for the Liberal Democrats will be worthless in stopping Brexit. The only way to do that is to elect a Labour government. There is no guarantee that another hung parliament would do the trick.
The People's Vote campaign has turned into a shambles and its tactics were and are wrong. They should have made up their minds that a people's vote was more important than remain and focused their attention on achieving it.
Instead, they entrenched in remain at all costs and set about attacking Corbyn.
If there is to be a people's vote on Brexit. The only hope for that is that Labour does sufficiently well in the general election to stop Boris.
To unite and heal the country it is necessary to win the minds Leavers for a people's vote.
Indeed, the choice in the general election is either Boris Johnson or Jeremy Corbyn. This is why the establishment will now throw everything they have to stop Corbyn.
Boris, for all his lies and deceit, is acceptable - a lovable rogue? Perhaps it is because he went to Eton and Oxbridge. It certainly can't be his way with and attitude to women.
And remember who they are who say Corbyn is unfit to be Prime Minister. It is in large part those who have supported policies that have driven people into poverty and reliance on food banks, who have presided over a housing scandal, schools crumbling, social care unaffordable....the list goes on. These are those judging another unfit to be Prime Minister. The Tories and the Liberal Democrats who foisted austerity onto the poorest while allowing the rich to get richer. Who, then, is the fittest to govern?
This is the establishment fighting back to preserve the status quo. Stop Corbyn at any cost!
This is the establishment fighting back to preserve the status quo. Stop Corbyn at any cost!
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