When you’re an obsessive politico with a degree in Politics, a social circle that is almost wholly contained in the Labour membership, and whose pastime is discussing the reliability of that night’s YouGov, it’s easy to lose a grip of reality, even as an avid canvasser.
That perception of what it means to be a party member, among other factors, is part of what had prompted my resentment of Corbynism and its advocates. The sense it was a product of people with their heads in the clouds. And while I also had my head in the clouds, I believed I had a better insight into the average voter. From a working class background and with a (pious?) superior sense of being grounded, with my mum as an anchor.
My mum, a teaching assistant who, as with all her peers, has only seen rising living costs, and little rise in her wage, is what you may consider an ‘ordinary’ Labour voter, should such a thing exist. She has always voted Labour, having inherited the habit (or identity, in a past political age) from a childhood on a council estate. Her habit of identifying as Labour would not always translate into a habit of voting. She would not know who Ed Miliband was, and not often watch a tv debate. Politicians wouldn’t really deliver change. Her enthusiasm may be considered a bellwether for retention.
I would refer back to her opinion to back up and justify my disgruntlement with the state of the party and the leadership. My anecdote was my confirmation bias.
I was guilty of being patronising, of presuming the ‘ordinary voter’, in my mum and in a strawwoman, would remain static this election with regards to Corbyn. I was wrong.
My mum, and it would seem some of her colleagues, have gone from apathy or bemusement toward Corbyn to an excitement. What began as a fear of Theresa May and what her education policies may mean for the security of their jobs has turned into a sincere excitement to turn out for Labour, more than any election I recall (I’m, er, 21). One of her friends, who has never voted, came out of the first debate stunned at how fresh and different Corbyn was, and will now be voting. When my mum echoed this and told me, I was taken aback, and rather ready to make a list of people to apologise to.
This does not mean the world. It may be that Corbyn racks up our votes in safe, city seats like mine, especially among public sector workers, and makes little inroads to the marginals we need to win and ultimately deliver a government that can help workers like my mum. If this happens, it may squash once again that temporary hope that things might change. If we still do end up in this scenario, anger would be justified. For now, though, there is a sense of enthusiasm in my house.
I’ve spent two years blogging the complete opposite. In fairness, it’s been based on evidence in raw numbers, that insight in my mum that I took for granted, Corbyn’s successive failures as an Opposition leader, and it was before the Tories revealed themselves to be hilariously shit. I felt justified in my anger that my family had been betrayed, especially as we went through crises. But my mum has changed her opinion, Corbyn’s improved dramatically, the Tories are shit, and the raw numbers, it would seem, have been transformed. That instinct that this shift is flimsy is a nagging one. My instinct is that polls are over-exaggerating young people’s propensity to vote. I am still certain Corbyn will not be Prime Minister. I still obsess over the reliability of each YouGov poll.
But as for my prejudice that the ‘ordinary voter’, my mum its median, would never change their mind or warm to Corbyn, or anyone like him, at least in this household – well, I was wrong. He’s cracked into something. There is a hope. And with it, a re-examination of my cynicism. As for the longevity of this respite from that cynicism, check up on my household come June 9th.
