How to 'Jezz' It Up – or not!

Labour party leader Jeremy 'Jezza' Corbyn has been almost invisible for several weeks as I write this, reappearing just a day or so ago with what at least one of his spokesmen has suggested is to be a 'Trump-style' re-launch. This immediately struck me as another big step on the road to Labour's seemingly inevitable oblivion, at least as a credible political party seeking election to national government.

His (or his aides') thinking has probably been along the lines of: "It obviously worked for Trump, so those same lines should do it for me [or "him"] too!"

Wrong! The USA has been suffering all manner of issues during the Obama years, some of which came to wide public realisation and understanding during the second such term. It has certainly become widespread knowledge during the last couple of years or so, thanks to trusted sources outside the mainstream media – sources such as Drudge Report, Breitbart and of course InfoWars & Prison Planet.

Also the alleged attempted rigging of the presidential election in favour of Hillary Clinton has been widely reported on those and other sites, as have other related matters.

Thus Trump's messages to the voters of America were not only appropriate, but resonated with them He is also very much non-Establishment, which is something else the voters lapped up, as they were sick of being conned by the Establishment – which in the States is more-or-less a two-headed beast, near enough running both significant political parties there.

To transfer those same messages (nearly verbatim) into our political arena just doesn't work, as the quoted snippets in this piece illustrate. The full speech is a lot more telling, though I haven't (so far) found a video of it online.

It doesn't take a genius to see why those Trump-like lines don't work when transplanted to our country and even to our politics. Oh yes, we too have an Establishment, and their aims, objectives and methods are at least similar to those in the USA in some regards. However, although they are supporting the Left primarily, exactly as in the States, they are also trying to control the Right – with very mixed success.

Thus this particular re-launch seems almost certain to backfire, as is discussed here.

Meanwhile, Labour's fortunes are sinking, not only in opinion polls but also in by-election results and especially regarding council seats. The Liberal Democrats are making hay while the sunshine switches away from Labour, even taking seats in Labour heartlands via huge swings.

Here's one such result from a council by-election just this past week...

Sandhill (Sunderland) result, council by-election on 12-01-2017:

LDEM: 45.0% (+41.5)
LAB: 25.0% (-29.9)
UKIP: 18.7% (-7.2)
CON: 10.0% (-5.7)
GRN: 1.3% (+1.3)

Just look at the size of that swing away from (mainly) Labour to the Lib Dems! Sunderland is, unsurprisingly, a traditional Labour heartland – but perhaps no longer.

This and other results over the past year might well be giving an indication that Labour's seat losses in the next General Election could be even more severe than commentators and psephologists have already been saying, and closer to my own prediction (which I originally made nearly a year ago, and haven't changed) of 120 to 130 Labour seats come May 2020.