In Frank Capra’s Mr Smith Goes To Washington a naïve but decent man is propelled into the US Senate. Amidst the corruption and backbiting of the American political system it is his unspun candor that shines through. This saccharine and sentimental tale is now part of the American mythos, but it has clearly entered some way into the British imagination, because it is a large part of the lens through which Jeremy Corbyn is viewed.
Both Corbyn’s supporters and enemies seem to share a common assumption about the man. People who dislike Corbyn call him an idiot: he dropped out of a polytechnic after a year; he does Prime Minister’s Questions wrong; his dress and demeanour is that of geography teacher selling socialist newspapers in 1986, not a statesman; and that he’s more suited to rallies, marches and picket lines than TV interviews and Parliament. People who like Corbyn effectively mirror these conclusions, but draw a more positive conclusion: Corbyn’s supposed “stupidity” becomes “idealism”. The image everyone seems to have of Corbyn is a naïf, who became leader of a political party by accident, after having spent his life wading down the Clun to protect ducklings and communing with owls in a Salopian copse.
So, when the polls indicate Corbyn is gaining ground on Theresa May, the opinion formers and the commentariat look for reasons to explain away what is happening. One suggestion, which I heard on This Week, is that May has deliberately put out a weak manifesto to close the polling gap and make the prospect of Jeremy Corbyn becoming Prime Minister more serious. Labour might be happy about their poll bounce, but while silly Jeremy is pushing checkers about the board clever Theresa is playing 4-dimensional chess. That such a ridiculous assertion is given weight, instead of the more obvious explanation that Labour are having a good campaign and the Tories a bad one, tells you how much the press have invested in the idea of a disparity in competence of the party’s respective leaders.
Obviously I, and people like me, will love Jeremy’s campaign because for the first time in our lives someone is talking enthusiastically about things we care about. But he’s also running a good campaign according to any apolitical metric you care to use. He’s put together a host of popular and populist policies, that when taken together form a cohesive narrative about where the country is going wrong and how to fix it, that can be summed in one short slogan: For the many, not the few. This should surprise literally no-one, people who have spent their lives campaigning tend to be pretty good at campaigning. You cant be an MP for 24 years, during a period when the Labour Party took part in periodical rooting of leftists within its ranks, without some wit and backbone. He proved this in both leadership campaigns, particularly the latter one, where he was able to easily outmaneuver the hapless Owen Smith. Unlike May, who got given the Prime Minister’s gig because everyone else fell over their own dicks, Corbyn had to fight two battles to become Labour leader.
On some issues Corbyn has even been able to attack May from the right. While his support for increased funding for the police will alienate some on the libertarian wing of the left — from liberals to anarchists — it is undoubtedly popular among the British public, particularly in light of tragic events in Manchester. He has also been able to attract some core Tory voters with his opposition to the dementia tax, which could mean a 66% tax rate for some low-middle-class homeowners. More than just supporting these two popular policies, he has also made them fit into his wider narrative: austerity is weakening the public realm, and social-democratic spending will strengthen it again. This is entirely consistent with how he led the appeal for the release of British suspects being held without trial in Gunatanamo. During that battle he brought on board right-wing MPs like David Davis by linking the fight to the principals laid down in the Magna Carta, and won support from The Daily Mail by emphasizing that a British citizen was being held unlawfully by a foreign government.
Corbyn has also benefitted from the press’ attempts to undermine him. If you go round telling people someone can’t tell their arse from their elbow, and they accurately demonstrate the difference between the Foreign Secretary and Guy Garvey, then they have cleared the low bar that you have set for them. Someone who will suffer as a result of the press-enforced image of Corbyn as an unserious know-nothing is Theresa May. She has many enemies in her party, and if she merely limps over the line on June the 8th they will begin to question why she was incapable of running up a huge majority. There is a rule in professional wrestling that you don’t run down your opponent too much, because if you call a guy a joke, then when you win you only beat a joke. Over at The Evening Standard the June 9th editorial may already be written.