Corbyn-Kim
How did we get here? Just six months ago, it was not considered respectable – let alone socially mandatory – to condone Jeremy Corbyn, either as a potential leader or as a man. MPs were resigning in protest. Remainers pinned Brexit on his incompetence. Labour flagrantly and repeatedly denied and ignored its anti-Semitism problem. (This problem has not gone away; earlier this month, Corbyn supporters in Bristol erected a giant banner showing Theresa May with star of David earrings. But because these issues have been roundly ignored, they’re starting to look like the new normal; maybe in fashion circles it’s called "anti-Semitic chic".)
Post-election, however, centrist friends and I are routinely finding ourselves in social situations where criticism of Corbyn is seen as rank provocation. Situations in which to say we loathed the man means being cast out as Tory scum. Where bringing up the anti-Semitism, the Shami Chakarbati whitewash report, the Hamas-sympathising, is to be told one is tiresome and blinkered.
So we in the anti-Corbyn resistance find that our social world is dwindling. There is less escape, not only from the sycophancy of the growing number of newly hard-lefties in our midst, but also from the headlines. The Corbynite manoeuvring around Grenfell, McDonnell’s thuggish soundbites about murder, and Corbyn’s showy tears over the Finsbury Park mosque attack that left one dead – as opposed to the attacks at Westminster nor at Borough, neither of which prompted any weeping from Jezza – all felt oppressive.
Glastonbury
But then there was Glastonbury. From his lectern on the Pyramid stage, in a manner not wholly dissimilar to the great European dictators of the 20th century, Corbyn orated, quoting Shelley. “Shake your chains to earth like dew: Which in sleep had had fallen on you. You are many, they are few!”
Indeed. And, as if all the Corbyn-inspired marching, protesting and rallying weren't enough, women have begun swooning over Corbyn: one popular Glastobury poster, held aloft by scantily-clad revellers, read, "oooh Jeremy Corbyn", encircled by a red heart. It can’t be long until Corbyn generates his own brand of erotica. In this regard, I can’t help but remember a historical study I read recently about the letters women wrote to Hitler, begging the Fuhrer to visit their homes at night, offering to leave the key to the house in the front garden, and proffering anal intercourse out of love (while their husbands were sleeping).
Thankfully, we don’t, and are highly unlikely ever to, have a Hitler (or indeed a Mussolini) on our hands. Nonetheless, this kind of 360 degree fandom, this cultish following of the new hard left and its Dear Leader, is not only sinister, it’s not very British, either. Please let it be over soon.
