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David Byers

ByDavid Byers, David Byers

Opinion

What’s it in for Newmark?

Corbyn’s revolutionary politics surprises no one, of course. But I was genuinely flabbergasted to see Jeremy Newmark — the sensible, centre-left, head of the Jewish Labour Movement — standing in my constituency of Finchley and Golders Green, writes David Byers.

May 25, 2017 10:17
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2 min read

A recent observation about Jeremy Corbyn’s election slogan, “For the many, not the few”, is that it was expropriated from Tony Blair’s 1997 campaign. In fact, as my Times colleague Phil Collins likes to point out, it actually originates a little earlier: Pericles’ funeral oration in 431BC.

It’s highly doubtful that Pericles — eminent Athenian statesman and celebrated warrior — would have felt at all enthused by being associated with the modern Labour party or, for that matter, this election in general.

Earlier this month, I spent two working days poring through Corbyn’s election manifesto, and found a document that in some ways has more in common with Trump than Blair. Not the political philosophy, of course, but the belief in easy solutions to complex problems, the lack of anything resembling a costing or methodology, and the constant attempts to play on people’s prejudices (in Corbyn’s case about “the fatcats”, “the elite” or “the rich” in general). The Tory manifesto, a week later, largely avoided the policies of economic fantasy, but instead plumped for a marquee social care revolution that unravelled ludicrously after four days.

Corbyn’s revolutionary politics surprises no one, of course. But I was genuinely flabbergasted to see Jeremy Newmark — the sensible, centre-left, head of the Jewish Labour Movement — standing for Labour in my constituency of Finchley and Golders Green.