Jez he can
I wouldn’t be too hasty to say “Farewell Labour.” Corbyn looks a bit scruffy, but he’s far more articulate than Miliband, who looked like a freak and spoke like a computerised dummy. If in three or four years’ time the country is in recession, unemployment and interest rates up, or just generally the feel-good factor has melted away, people might just be tempted as they have been in the past by the Big Socialist Lie that they can have a better life by voting for somebody else to pay for it. Whether or not Corbyn is still Labour leader by the next election, he has galvanised the Left to come out fighting and he may be more effective at holding Cameron to account than many think.
P. John O'Neill, Rayong, Thailand
CapX rambles on like an old Tory grump, reciting right-wing received truths as if it has just thought of them. Iain Martin’s jibe about Corbyn being like a sociology lecturer comes ironically from a man whose opinions are all borrowed without acknowledgement from his house organ the Telegraph. If I have heard what he has to say once, I heard it dozens of times during the Labour leadership campaign. What irritates me about this sort of writing is the triumphalism of the truly mediocre, the condescension of this insignificant and obscure reverse class warrior towards someone who is his moral and intellectual superior.
Tim Weston, Cornwall, UK
Editor's response
I bow down before Jeremy Corbyn, my moral and intellectual superior.
Your articles on Corbyn are absolute nonsense and, if you have any intelligence, you will know it as well as I do. Jeremy Corbyn’s ideas are up for discussion, but prominent economists have been consulted, have studied his proposals, and 40 have declared them viable. What is so wonderful about austerity that the growth of our national debt being doubled to £1.6 trillion, the diminution of tax revenues due to poverty pay and tax avoidance by corporations means that the interest on the debt cannot be serviced and the debt is increasing at a rate of £1 billion a day, makes it worthwhile?
David Britten, United Kingdom
Corbyn has to succeed for the long-term ‘good’ of the majority of the British people and when he becomes Prime Minister, he must build an economy based upon high-technology unlike Blair, who put most of his eggs in the City basket.
Dr David Hill, Huddersfield, UK
Shadow (cabinet) boxing
Julia Hartley-Brewer’s comments on Corbyn’s shadow cabinet are amusing but by commenting on the absence of women in the top three posts she shows what a grip this boring topic of female representation has on the minds of those in the privileged position of being able to address the public. If she thought a woman had been unfairly overlooked why did she not say so? Corbyn presumably picked who he thought was most suited to the posts and to not pick a woman just to comply with today’s idiocy is in his favour. Is there any chance of regaining some sanity and discarding this absurd obsession with gender?
Bernard Greenwood, Lancashire, United Kingdom
Editor's response
I will pass on your comments to Julia.
I was looking forward to something intelligent and perceptive here. Sadly this is a terrible piece of… journalism? There’s no substance to it whatsoever, the criticisms of the Shadow Cabinet seemingly concerned merely with how media savvy, exciting and well-voiced each position holder is. Really very poor.
Mike Jones, Colchester, UK
Editor's response
Sorry Mike. I rather enjoyed it.
Dessert wine, sir?
Very good piece on Willie Whitelaw planting Jeremy Corbyn as a Tory secret agent in 1982. But it’s Chateau d’Yquem, not Chateau Yquem.
James Curran, Glasgow, UK.
Marx out of ten
Re Andrew Roberts article, Jeremy Corbyn would be Labour’s most left-wing leader in history. Let’s face it: Jeremy Corbyn is not Labour, he’s a Communist. Let’s use the correct terminology in future, please.
Cliff Hild, Surrey, UK.
