For the first time in more than\nfour years, Jeremy Corbyn is no longer the leader of the Labour\nparty. The veteran backbencher, to quote the phrase, is returning to\nhis preferred seat. Or at least he will be once coronavirus lockdown\nis lifted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think I was less aghast than the average pundit when Corbyn beat the likes of Yvette Cooper and Andy Burnham to become Labour leader back in September 2015. Being less knowledgeable than most pundits I didn’t appreciate what an upset it was, and unlike some I wanted a genuine change after Ed Miliband<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Before that leadership race it\ncould easily be argued there was little to separate Labour and the\nConservatives. As the muckrakers went to work it became clear that\nthere was a lot to separate Corbyn from David Cameron: his politics\nfor a start, but also his career and temperament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

British politics is better for\noffering a genuine choice to voters who went to the polls in June\n2017 and December 2019. It would be better still if we had a\nproportional voting system, but picking between two distinct parties\nis an improvement on the Blairite consensus that prevailed before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was therefore something to\nlike about Corbyn right from the start. But I found plenty to\ndislike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One feature of British politics\nthat distinguishes it from the American variety is that we tend not\nto put idiots into high office. Corbyn always struck me as dull, and\nperhaps even stupid. His advocates found his intellectual\ninflexibility over decades in politics commendable; I found it\nevidence that the man read little and thought less.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The leftist writers making decent\npoints about inequity in Britain in the early 21^{st<\/sup> century\nare all better qualified than Corbyn to deal with such problems.\nJames Bloodworth, who chronicled casual work in his book Hired<\/em>,\nis perhaps the most noteworthy,\nbut even Corbyn’s cheerleader Owen Jones has\nmore of relevance to say about modern Britain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n}

At\nthe risk of taking my own hobby horse for a ride, combatting our\nera’s economic inequity will involve a confrontation with\nmeritocracy: in other words, overturning the view that material\nwealth should be bestowed on the skilful. This is a different fight\nthan the notions of class warfare that Corbyn was steeped in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even\nso, I would not have been heartbroken had Corbyn and his chancellor\nJohn McDonnell been able to make the economy more equal. What made it\nimpossible for me to vote for Corbyn (and would have made me vote\nConservative in a straight contest) were his anti-Western foreign\npolicy views.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If\nunthinking patriotism makes people support their country in right or\nwrong, then unthinking anti-patriotism makes them oppose their\ncountry for the same reasons. Corbyn’s list of acquaintances over his\ncareer suggests any opponent of the West was fine by him. That alone\nshould have made him unelectable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\nCorbyn came close to becoming prime minister in June 2017 should give\neverybody doubts about who can’t win a general election. While he\nfailed in this respect, the country and the Conservatives seem to\nhave more appetite for state intervention than before. Whatever his\nsuccessor Keir Starmer does next, Corbyn can claim that much of a\nlegacy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the first time in more than four years, Jeremy Corbyn is no longer the leader of the Labour party. The veteran backbencher, to quote the phrase, is returning to his preferred seat. Or at least he will be once coronavirus lockdown is lifted. I think I was less aghast than the average pundit when…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[161,941],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rightdishonourable.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4343"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rightdishonourable.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rightdishonourable.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rightdishonourable.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rightdishonourable.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4343"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rightdishonourable.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4343\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4344,"href":"https:\/\/rightdishonourable.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4343\/revisions\/4344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rightdishonourable.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rightdishonourable.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rightdishonourable.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}