There’s a stereotypical elderly Brexiter who frequents my local pub.
You know the type. In his 70s, lifelong Tory, Farage fan, little Englander. Likes to rant about how Britain needs to “take back control“, “just walk away” from the Brexit negotiations, and how we should tell Merkel and Macron to “shove off” etc etc. Every pub has at least one.
But my irritation at having to listen to his right-wing, delusional bullshit was considerably eased when he once happened to mention to me what huge Jeremy Corbyn fans his two beloved grand-daughters were.
He shook his head in genuine pain as he described how he had tried to explain to them so many times why they couldn’t – just couldn’t – even think about voting for such a “dangerous” man like Corbyn.
So you can imagine how happy I was when I had the unexpected pleasure recently of meeting the two young women when he took his grand-daughters to the pub quiz night.
They didn’t look like the extremist members of Momentum portrayed by the tabloids – they looked just like typical young 19/20-year-old women.
“Your grandfather tells me you’re both Jeremy Corbyn fans?” I asked them later on in the evening.
“Yes,” one of them said, her eyes raised to heaven. “But he keeps going on about how he’s a friend of terrorists, a closet Communist and all that other Daily Mail rubbish. He really should stop reading that drivel. But it’s OK. We don’t argue. We just let him get on with it.”
It was then, at that precise moment, I understood something really quite fundamental was happening.
Here finally, was a younger generation who the right-wing press could not only no longer reach – but their attacks and smears were having the opposite effect.
It reminded me of when I was about the same age and I visited an elderly aunt, who told me I should iron my trousers better because the creases “weren’t visible.”
“But they’re jeans,” I started to explain to her, before realising it wasn’t worth explaining the difference between denim jeans and other trousers to someone so old and so out-of-touch.
‘Don’t argue. Just let her get on with it,’ I thought. Because at the age of 20, an elderly aunt approving of my dress-sense would have been far more worrying.
That’s why the right-wing press have shot their bolt when it comes to Jeremy Corbyn. They’ve spent so long, so ridiculously, so strongly smearing him with their ridiculous fake news about dancing or not bowing on Remembrance Sunday, or smears about sitting on over-crowded trains, or false accusations of anti-semitism or lies about supporting terrorism or whatever, that younger people don’t just disagree with it. They’re actually amused by it all.
To the younger generation, the right-wing press are not just out-of-touch. It’s much, much worse than that. They are utterly, utterly irrelevant.
And the press is starting to realise it. Since the last election – when it became clear Corbyn was not being damaged but was being boosted by the attacks on him – the tabloids have all but stopped the literally weekly smears that used to appear against the Labour leader.
Because they know it’s no longer working, and probably even having the opposite effect.
The only way Murdoch, Dacre et al could even try to influence the younger generations now to turn against Jeremy Corbyn, would be to start praising him to the hilt.
Because then younger people might think twice before agreeing with what they probably see as the rather amusing but spectacularly irrelevant mouthpieces of a generation whose opinions are so out-of-touch and insignificant, they probably still think jeans should have creases in them.
Expect more clampdowns on social media as the panic on Fleet Street and in Downing Street at the loss of their influence becomes blind …
Heero Miketta said:
I wish that was true. I see far too many young people who either are “not that political” and give a rat’s arse about Corbyn (“who is that?”). I see career types (“Have to focus on my family and my life, mate. Tories are better for the economy.”). And I see lots of lunatic right wingers. The bloody identitarian movement has made it here from Germany!
But all that is not the worst. The worst is that Corbyn caters to the Lexit movement – and Brexit is toxic. The Tories are better at populist nationalism than Labour will ever be. No clear opposition against Brexit, and Dennis Skinner spreading bullshit about the EU, that’s leading nowhere.
No reason for optimism there. None at all.
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3kilometersKabbalahbaby said:
Jeremy Corbin as a public figure has to take responsibility for his words. Yesterday I spoke to Avram Saad who was once a member of Hezbollah (in the 80’s). He escaped from Lebanon after Hisbollah tortured two of his children to death in front of him. He witnessed horrors that make the exploits of ISIS look like musical chairs. Jeremy Corbin claims these thugs as his friends. He makes it politically correct to be anti semetic. It isn’t. Hell needs to be fuelled -hate is its fuel. I am sure your rhetoric is well meaning and honest but it gives me chills to think that Jeremy Corbin could influence the young generation who have no memory of the holocaust or ethnic cleansing in Lebanon. Hate is hate. I ask that you channel your energies into learning about the friends of Jeremy Corbin and open your mind instead of generalising about right or left which are both self limiting concepts that perpetuate the meaningless labyrinth we are all stuck in.
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Tom Mapfumo said:
You talk such utter rubbish, like most of those on the right-wing of Labour and their political cohorts. We on the left know all about the false weaponising of “Anti-Semitism” to defend the Apartheid state of Israel – a political Zionist movement that many oppose, including a majority of jews. Left wing Jews back Corbyn and his stand on human rights and peaceful negotiations between warring parties. The complicated definition of Anti-Semitism that is used to prevent ANY criticism of Israel and free speech in general is anathema to a mature society and your words are taken directly out of that song-book, I’m sad to say. You could just try being nice to other people.
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nearlydead said:
Reblogged this on nearlydead.
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dave horton said:
Sadly,I’m of an age when we did put creases in our jeans 😉
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jon said:
I suspect this is largely true. But once young people realise that Corbyn is pro-Brexit the gloss will be somewhat lost. He can only fool them for so long.
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jo said:
I agree with Meero there are a lot of people (I would say majority with a head count) who do not give a monkey’s about anything other than …
and I agree with Tom Mapfumo…and think 3kilometers rant about Corbyn is straight from Murdoch’s song sheet and is the biggest load of crap I’ve read since the tabloids msn stopped election make it all up …’I know a man who knows a man,so therefore’…what kind of logic is that in a debate.?
I know a man also ,who knows a man who knows a man and you know this man,this is a man you know 3kilometres …so we must all ‘WATCH OUT’ .
Folk shoudn’t twist words of people to fit agenda’s and read what was said by Corbyn and if they don’t and just ‘pub’ gossip then please get off your horse and actually go and speak to the man at the other pub..you can draw conclusions that way.
I don’t know if JC or Labour are right for this country (I don’t like any politician) but at the moment (and always was) Mays crew are just poor to rubbish,with some actually borderline evil thrown in the pot.
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Liz Yorke said:
Unfortunate image. Could provoke some nutter? I have lived in the US and am maybe supersensitive to the prospect of gun or other forms of violence…However, my thoughts on Brexit are that it is time for Jeremy to realize that the majority of Labour supporters are Remainers. The Tories are likely, after they have ousted May, to go for Reece Mogg which will tear them apart and leave Tory EU supporters without a party they believe in. Some of the Labour Brexiters may well defect to the Brexit Tories but overall I wonder if it could trigger a major re-orientation of party allegiances. The Lib Dems are not convincing Remainer folk to go over to them and so if JC opens up to Remaining in the EU it could be a successful EU/election strategy for Labour. Just sayin’…
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sdbast said:
Reblogged this on sdbast.
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leonc1963 said:
Jon, Corbyn is not pro brexit at least not in the same sense as the Tories, he is a reformer and wants a reformed EU you know the EU that the younger generation wants with protection of jobs, human rights and peace around the world exactly the things the Tories want to rip up and have already started with human rights
So let’s stop putting Corbyn in the same basket as the Tories as they are NOT one and the same
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notjustagranny said:
what we really need is for the tired old Labour party and the grim Tory party to have a complete sea change of personnel and policies ergo a new party to spring up from the ashes. the Lib Dems are less than insignificant and UKIP is a joke with a bullyboy who can’t bear get his paws out the money pot. The Greens simply don’t have the oomph to get much further than they are. What we need in this country is a completely new party that isn’t made up of posh peers, or supporters of nefarious 80’s groups. Some one with solid policies, at least a smidgen of honesty and a solid foundation of integrity, someone who can actually lead a party without nepotism, lies and flubbergusto, and should definitely exclude, Gove, Johnson, Hunt and that set. Actually what we really need is for every current politician to either retire, resign or disappear into oblivion…and I’m not talking about the few decent MP’s out there trying to do a decent job while banging their heads against a brick wall….but rather the nefarious bunch that make up the current political parties. And when they do, all that schoolboy bullying/shouting/jeering in Parliament should be banned. Sadly I doubt we have anyone with the right calibre.
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mohandeer said:
Reblogged this on Worldtruth.
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Lionel Smith said:
3kilometersbabblingbrook wrote:
“He makes it politically correct to be anti semetic.”
You are confusing criticism of Israel and its history of barbaric ethnic cleansing with anti-Semitism. This is a common tactic of those who wish to deflect from Israel’s lees than humane conduct over many decades especially since the end of The Mandate in 1948.
For details read books by Ilane Pappe which feature at the base of the graphic linked here with a number of other titles that inform on the history of how the world got to this state with respect to an area of land that didn’t belong to the Hebrews in the first instance. Archaeology has for one shown that Jericho did not exist at the time the Hebrews walked in from the desert.
Can be printed out landscape A4 and split up into six bookmarks if desired.
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Ian Gibson said:
@3kilometersKabbalahbaby: re Corbyn’s ‘friends,’ even if what you say were true (and it isn’t), why is that any different to our right wing leaders (both Conservative and Labour) supporting right wing terrorists? If you think that’s a valid reason not to support someone being in government, then surely they cancel each other out, meaning that either you can’t support anyone from the current crop, or you have to discount that whole area as a basis on which to make your judgement.
As for your statement that ‘he makes it politically correct to be anti semetic’… well, you could hardly provide a better example of exactly what Tom describes in this post, a claim so divorced from reality that not only does it not count against him, it actually has the opposite effect.
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Mr. Magoo said:
@Heero. Opposing Brexit right now is politically toxic (that’s why the Liberal Democrats only received 7.4% of the election vote). There’s no need to keep fighting the 2016 referendum, Remain voters should be fighting for a referendum on the Brexit deal (a ratification referendum). So many Remain voters voted for Labour because they knew that they could trust JC to put the deal to a referendum if it is a bad deal (which it certainly will be).
Anti-war-liberal-socialism is more popular in the UK now than ever and it’s gaining more and more momentum. That’s a legitimate reason to be hopeful about the future.
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Mark Catlin said:
Reblogged this on Declaration Of Opinion.
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Terry Davies said:
Validates all my comments for its grandchildren who are affected by selfishness of their grandfather who effectively represents the morons of my generation. Im estranged from a (tory ? ) daughter who is old enough to have procreated and produced grandchildren. Im trusting tory is a dirty word in their lives and they can see one tory in this world is too many and counter – productive to their interests.
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