Owen Smith is the unknown Welsh MP who has put himself forward to unite the Labour Party by challenging the formerly unknown Jeremy Corbyn for the leadership. The reason for this challenge is that the majority of the Parliamentary Labour Party have decided that they will never win power with Jeremy Corbyn as their leader. To be fair it is not anything Jeremy has or hasn't done, despite assertions by others that it is.
Many MPs decided even before he had won the election that they would never support him and made that abundantly clear even as the result was being announced. Over the past nine months or so there has been a growing movement against the leader, although who is orchestrating this is not clear. Instances of bullying and Watergate style burglaries have been blamed on Corbyn. Apparently he is responsible for the trolls on social media and has it in his power to make them stop. That he is not doing so is further proof of his lack of leadership and proof that he is unelectable.
In the interests of balance I have to say that maybe he has made one or two mistakes throughout his lengthy career in Parliament. 'Our friends in Hamas' is a phrase which has come back to bite him on the bum and is one example which the media have seized upon to prove he is a dangerous extremist. There are others, and nobody at the time thought anything of it, but then nobody thought he would one day be leader of his party.
As far a skeletons in cupboards go however, I think Corbyn's are pretty small fry compared to many lurking in other MPs' wardrobes and which they are desperate to keep there. I long ago learned not to have heroes because they will undoubtedly let you down and turn out to have feet of clay. Admire people if you will, but do so from a distance, that way you are never too disappointed. I welcome it when England win a test match or their rugby team play well. I was pleased that Chris Froome won the Tour de France, but I never get down if they fail to do these things. I am not a football fan and support no team in particular. The overwhelming optimism of those who are takes my breath away, but the downside to this must be the inevitable crushing disappointment when their team fails to win again. So many teams, so few competitions, and therefore so few winners.
Anyway let us return to Owen Smith. Am I the only person to think he looks a bit like a younger John Smith?
The Unity candidate. Owen Smith claims he has the ability to unite all the party and move it forward in fighting the Tories. A split caused by MPs like himself who decided not to recognise their elected leader and thus oppose him at every possible end and turn.
It's a bit like somebody breaking your arm and then saying, 'It's ok, I'm an orthopaedic surgeon, I can repair it for you. Who's that crying in the corner? Oh that's just Angela, I sent her on ahead to make the way clear for me to ride to the rescue of the party. Think of her as a sort of John the Baptist figure. She is not the One but the One who makes good the way for the One, or something. Now where's this broken arm, oh yes, silly me, I've still got hold of it.'
And how is he going to do his uniting trick? Well it seems by basically nicking all Corbyn's policies except unilateral disarmament and claiming them for his own.
This man is a smooth operator. He has seen which way the wind is blowing in the country and has decided that the only way to win them over is by promising them the same as his opponent. This puts the PLP in a difficult position. They have produced a unity candidate to take on what they see as a dangerously left wing leader and he is canvassing using the very left wing ideas which they claim to oppose.
This throws up several possibilities. Does he really espouse the things he is proposing, in which case do the MPs support him or not, or is he just saying he espouses them in order to win over the greater membership, while actually having no intention of being that radical once he is elected leader. In other words can we trust him, is he a man of his word? Or is he just another politician who will promise the moon and just give you a signed photograph instead. I do think he may have overcooked it a bit. One of the criticisms levelled at Corbyn by his detractors is that he wants to take us back to the seventies. Let us look at what Smith is proposing:
- Reintroducing Wages Councils, abolished by former Conservative PM Margaret Thatcher, across different sectors of industry - to boost pay above the minimum wage in sectors such as retail and care
- Minimum guaranteed working hours and the abolition of zero hours contracts
- Scrapping trade union reforms that curb the ability of unions to call strikes
- To establish a Ministry of Labour
- Same rights rights for agency workers as full time workers
- Workers to be placed on company remuneration committees
- A ban on companies being allowed to recruit only foreign workers
Forgive me for being a bit cynical here but these all sound a bit seventies as well. How I wonder does Liz Kendall feel about these proposals? Or Progress?
Laying aside nuclear disarmament for a moment, it seems that we are being asked to choose between a man who is renowned even among his detractors for being principled and thoughtful, who has worked tirelessly for more than thirty years to address wrongs and support the less privileged both here and abroad; and a man whom nobody had heard of a year ago, with no track record to speak of, who says the right thing, but whom we don't know we can trust to do what he promises. I know where my money is.
On another topic, I had the misfortune to catch the end of an Adam Sandler film last night. It was called Tower Heist and was a sort of comedy crime caper. I find that any film described as a caper is devoutly to be avoided and most American films which call themselves comedies, likewise.
As I turned on the telly there was a Thanksgiving parade taking place and several FBI agents charging about looking worried. Then suddenly a truck burst through a gate and proceeded to drive through the middle of the parade along its entire length until it was stopped by two police cars and officers pointing guns. Several things struck me about this.
Firstly the truck was driven buy a black man, yet he was not shot dead when stopped. In fact he was not shot at all and by the end of the film had walked free, despite having driven right through a Thanksgiving Day parade.
Secondly in doing so he had not hit one single person, nobody was hurt.
I would call it crass but then by definition any film with Adam Sandler in is by definition crass. Let me instead call Channel 4 crass. Crass and thoughtless and unthinking. TV companies, and particularly the BBC pull programmes when something has happened that might clash with the content of that film or show. Two weeks ago 84 people were killed and many more injured when a lorry driver deliberately drove into the crowd on Le Promenade des Anglais in Nice.
To show the film so soon after the event was at the very best tasteless and Channel 4 should be ashamed of themselves.
Take care
Love Tim xx
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