From the Evening Standard: “Senior members of the shadow cabinet have told The Londoner that they understand Jeremy Corbyn would like to step down as leader of the Labour Party.”
The million-pound question is this: Have the Labour Party – like ZanuPF – realised the old man is so tired and so toxic that he has to go for the good of the party?
An optimistic promise of the new is probably all that’s needed to beat Theresa May’s lacklustre and divided government. And inevitably there will be a “bump” of optimism sufficient to propel Labour into power.
But it won’t be the old decent, sensible Labour. It won’t be the young and centrist Labour of Chuka Umunna and his gang of defectors. No, it’ll be the Corbynites with a new face.
When Robert Mugabe was finally forced to step down, there was a wave of optimism. People genuinely thought change was coming. The incoming leader, it turned out, was more of the same. Emmerson Mnangagwa wasted no time proving it was business as usual.
Now of course, Jeremy Corbyn is not Robert Mugabe. Certainly they are cut from similar Marxist cloth, but JC has never had an army behind him, nor won an election (even a fixed one), but is it possible that, like RM, ‘The Party’ have deemed him unelectable and are moving in a similar way, having made a similar calculation that all they need is a bump of optimism to win the next election?
Discuss.
