Corby frenzy shouts out real news

“Yesterday the Tories voted for a £4.4bn cut to tax credits, which will undoubtedly increase poverty in Britain. 24 hours prior they voted in favour of implementing a bill that amounts to an all-out attack on trade unions. But today’s front pages are dominated by one image: Jeremy Corbyn not singing the National Anthem at yesterday’s Battle of Britain memorial service.”

Yes, Mr Corbyn has experienced and extraordinary amount of ridicule and hostile scrutiny since his campaign to become Labour leader started and since his victory the criticism has become sufficiently shrill to deafen bats.

Over the weekend we saw Mr Corbyn lambasted for his ‘walk of silence’ (those are the words of the tabloids) in which he refused to answer questions about the makeup of his cabinet: will it include women and does he even know what a woman is?

Had the journos shut up and paid attention, they might of understood that, one, Mr Corbyn hadn’t finished the cabinet shuffle and you don’t talk about projects that aren’t done, two, Mr Corbyn hates the mainstream media for exactly the dickhead behaviour they exhibit when hounding him, and, three, hates the mainstream media because whatever he does they’ll criticise him for it (more on that below). Had the journos held on to their horses before lavishing this non news on the news wire, they would have learned that more than 50 per cent of his shadow cabinet are women.

What was that about Mr Corbyn being attacked whatever he does? Oh, yes, he didn’t sing the national anthem, and was therefore a traitor. Mr Corbyn is a republican and an atheist, so had he sung the national anthem, which is about both monarch and God, he would have been slammed as a hypocrite by the same people.

But would they? Isn’t that just supposition?

No, it isn’t, and here’s why. On Saturday the Sun called Mr Corbyn a hypocrite for intending to attend a meeting with the Queen, and the very next day called him disrespectful an unpatriotic.

The ongoing and unrelenting vilification of Mr Corbyn serves a number of useful functions: one, it distracts people from what’s really going on, two, it sets up a narrative in which leftwing politics is a politics of failure and can be discredited. When the crescendo of Corbyn hate drowns out his message and turns would-be supporters away from him the prophesy will have fulfilled itself.