Fishface

From Dennis Skinner. This is lovely from Dennis Skinner on Jeremy Corbyn. It just hits the spot exactly, I think. Dennis Skinner on Jeremy Corbyn: "I don't think Corbyn's the best leader ever. I appreciate that he's not the best at appealing to a lot of demographics. he's crap with soundbites; not good at speaking straight to camera. Better in real situations with real people. I appreciate that he's not got a great deal of, what would you call it, zing. I don't agree with him on everything by any means. Still, you know something I know? If Labour lose the election, Jeremy Corbyn will probably go back to being a local MP. He'll carry on holding speakers up for people at meetings, and helping people with their chairs, and thanking people for making the sandwiches. He'll carry on having talks and doing constituency surgeries and attending debates and asking questions and campaigning on various issues and staying behind to carry on talking about stuff with ordinary people after the event's finished. If he weren't the leader now, he'd be campaigning on behalf of the party. He'd be standing at the back helping. He's not going to swan off to a career of after-dinner speaking and corporate events and non-executive directorships and consultancies. He's not going to edit the Evening Standard. It's not his personal ambition that's brought him here. He wasn't ever that keen on being a leader. The only reason he stood when he did was that, to paraphrase another Labour front-bencher, every other remaining left-wing MP in the party had already stood as the token socialist candidate in a previous leadership election, and it was basically his turn. And here's the thing: his apparent lack of charisma notwithstanding (and what is this charisma that apparently Tim Farron and Theresa May possess? It's like nothing I've ever seen described using that term before), he's the exact opposite of what everyone seems to agree they're sick of in politicians. The meaningless soundbites and stock phrases and glib dog-whistle oversimplifications don't sit naturally with him. He's better at sitting down calmly and talking about things like a grown-up. He's visibly irritated when interviewers push him to answer stupid, meaningless or leading questions, and, to me, that irritation seems remarkably restrained considering that I'd probably be unable to put up with such bollocks without flying into an expletive-laden rant. He reminds me of a Scandinavian politician, and that's nothing but a compliment. Politicians aren't supposed to be evangelists or salespeople; they're supposed to be people of substance, not just a mass of superficially appealing tics, right? Right? In short, he's a real human person, like you get in real life, not whatever kind of thing most politicians are where you just cannot imagine them existing in any normal situation alongside real people without getting punched in the face. I've seen people like him, working in various capacities, usually doing something socially responsible, sometimes voluntary. They help. They support. They sympathise. They don't usually get to the top of organisations because they're not naturally competitive. And here he is, in a position he probably never expected to be in, and his expression is, for me, the right one: he's grim; a touch uncertain; perhaps somewhat daunted. Quite right too. Anyone who's not daunted by the prospect of being Prime Minister shouldn't be allowed anywhere near the job. I want whoever leads the country to feel the responsibility as keenly as possible. The Prime Minister is the servant of millions of masters, not the master of millions of servants, as Theresa May seems to think she is. It's a horrible job, but if nobody else is going to do it, he'll have to. Because someone's got to. You can't just stand there and do nothing. You have to try to help; to do what you can. That's what he's like. And if the election's lost as the last two were, he'll go back to helping in whatever other ways are available. And if he loses his seat (which he won't), he'll go and try to help somewhere else. The fact that this man is considered unelectable when the alternatives are as they are is itself an indictment of our society. The UK needs to be careful who they shake hands with." [Jonathan Connell]