What Price Democracy: With great wealth comes great responsibility, what of humility?

I feel I have something I should share. It may upset some people but I think I have to put it out there.

I do not support Jeremy Corbyn. I am not a Corbynista. In last year’s leadership election, I did not vote for Jeremy Corbyn (or Tom Watson though, I suspect, people will be less bothered by that revelation).

I do, however, support Corbyn’s democratically elected leadership of the Labour party and I did vote for him in the current leadership election. Labour has problems as a party but Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership sits at the Everest base camp compared with the problems that are most pressing and that are tearing the party down right now all the way up to the summit.

I voted for Corbyn this year because I believe that Labour must remain a socially democratic party. That might produce results that heirs to supermarket fortunes and authors of very popular fiction don’t like very much but maybe, just maybe, accumulating or inheriting massive wealth doesn’t mean you can see into the future with any more accuracy than anyone else. Of course, I am making an assumption that these people actually care whether Labour is a democratic institution, they have certainly thrown their lot in with people who clearly do not.

It’s not that the elephants in the room don’t have a right to have a voice just because their wealth seemingly adds a disproportionate weight to it. I don’t even blame them if, in their naivety, they don’t realise that the attention their voice gets is due to their wealth, not due to the wisdom in their words and so they should use it with caution. Bestselling authors don’t choose for millions of people to follow them on the Twitters and for lazy journalists/commentators and editors to hang on and make headlines of their utterances. In the same way that I would tend to ignore some contrary ravings of @Pip_squeek69, people should leave equally ponderous thoughts of celebrities to die on the vine.

As a quick aside: when trying to think up a silly Twitter account name, always search on Twitter before you use your made up one in whatever you’re writing. It’s hilarious how many versions of pipsqueak I had to go through to find an unused one.

The Mirror has reported that senior Labour figures have approached Corbyn’s leadership with a series of proposals to save the Labour party from being torn apart by the current mess. I can pretty much guarantee that the expulsion of those behind the “coup” is not among them. In fact, means of protecting those same destructive figures will be key to the proposals. “No recriminations” “it’s just politics” will echo but Labour have been doing this dance for too long and Corbyn’s leadership are well placed to rid Labour of those who have, in some cases, openly boasted of being prepared to agitate against Labour in a never ending battle. Some have even shared their plans to corrupt the Labour conference in defiance of Corbyn earning a second mandate from the party membership.

Deal or no deal? I think those bringing proposals to the leadership don’t realise that the defeated do not dictate the terms of surrender.