Bernard Ingham: Madness of Corbyn surge leaves us on brink of ruin
I care nought for my demise as a political genius in forecasting a Tory majority of nearly 60 only for them to lose it entirely.
But I do care for what the Jeremy Corbyn surge tells us about Britain and its impact on foreign opinion.
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Hide AdJust under half the voters, it seems, naively think money really does grow on trees. They are either ignorant or forgetful about the disastrous 1960s and 1970s when mild socialism, and unbridled union power, gripped and debilitated us.
It is utterly corruptible, given that Corbyn promised the earth, most notably an end to student fees.
And it is stupidly reckless in embracing an unshaven misfit who has in the past consorted with terrorists and enemies of the state.
Gone in one mad day, June 8, 2017, went Britain’s reputation for responsibility and sober judgment. We are nearly as cavalier as the Americans in electing Donald Trump and the French a man without an established party as their president.
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Hide AdOn this basis Angela Merkel had better watch out in this autumn’s German general election. Vladimir Putin will soon be dancing in Red Square, stripped to the waist, of course.
It is perhaps easier to understand Winston Churchill’s rejection in 1945 after leading us through World War Two than the latest British election. Having voted for Brexit, the people then contradictorily deny a Brexit government political muscle in negotiations.
Have no doubt that, as the Euro-zealots mass and the EU mocks us, it is going to be the devil’s own job to become an independent, self-governing state again.
Equally, have no doubt that the menace represented by Corbyn is here to stay. Labour will find it immensely difficult to dislodge him, assuming they want to in view of their disgusting hypocrisy in now settling for a man they said was political poison.
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Hide AdAs for the next few months, the British people have landed themselves in an utter mess. We shall soon discover whether the Tory Party recognises its responsibility to keep out Corbyn in the national interest or turns nastily in on itself.
First, we have a Prime Minister – and therefore government – that has lost its authority just when it needs it most to complete a real, not sham, Brexit. In loose association with Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party, it now has to try to do this on reasonable terms when the economy is mired in uncertainty and we are still up to our necks in debt, thanks to Gordon Brown.
At the same time the state is at risk from terrorists who glory in mowing down, bombing, shooting and stabbing the innocent.
Gone for the moment, I fear, is the drive, enunciated cackhandledly in the Tory manifesto, to face up to the social and attitudinal problems that are coming home to roost after 50 years of social sabotage and degeneration – notably at the hands of Corbyn’s hard left and their cohorts, especially in universities.
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Hide AdIn the 1950s we used to laugh at those bristly-moustachioed dinosaurs who said the welfare state would “sap the moral fibre of the nation”. But they were right. A society that believes in have now, pay later and something for nothing – or on other people’s taxes –is a sucker for Corbyn punishment. Nearly half of the electorate are suckers.
In short, we – and not just Mrs May or the Tories –are down, if not out, by our own hands.
The recovery has started with the firing of her close advisers who got above themselves. Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill, together with Mrs May’s Australian so-called “campaign strategist” Sir Lynton Crosby, should never be allowed anywhere near an election again.
That does not excuse Mrs May, who was daft enough to listen to them and allow them sway.
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Hide AdShe does not have much of a future if she does not ditch her DIY-tendency and take her colleagues’ counsel. The country needs to feel that in spite of it all she is a leader who genuinely aims to put Britain back on the international pedestal it has forfeited this spring.
For all her faults, she is the only one – at least for now – who stands between us and political and economic disaster.
Indeed, our hard won freedoms are at stake. The hard left is essentially undemocratic. These totalitarians do not tolerate dissent.
I am not kidding you. I was never more serious.