Media luvvies have to focus on a new problem with the UK General Election dominating the news. Brexit is on a temporary backburner, and even the latest silly threats from the EU only crop up on the Brexit page (about p.8) of the Guardian.Maybe there is a bit of temporary relief too at the election of the French Blair, one Macron, as President instead of Le Pen the NF leader and anti-EU candidate.
The Labour Party draft manifesto was leaked to the joy of those like Kuenssberg on the BBC, who were able to trot out the Tory mantra of 'chaos'. Kuenssberg was especially cross because the Labour Leader (Corbyn) had the temerity to say in London to address the issue of the leak instead of taking advantage of the kindness of the BBC in offering the unveiling of a poster as a' prime opportunity' for him to talk to them (and her). Such arrogance!
When the draft was revealed, though -- shock and horror! It promised considerable State intervention in rail, mail and energy, the latter through the sponsorship of local companies to rival the Big 6. It promised abolishing tuition fees, tax rises on the richest 5%, extensive borrowing to invest in FE and other policies. Quietly, these would only be possible post-Brexit, of course, since the EU forbids excessive State funding, and thank God the dreadful'free trade' TTIP with the USA was only signed too recently to affect us (I hope).
The BBC and others were shocked, especially after several pundits admitted these would be very popular policies! How best to counter this threat to everything they stood for? Why had Labour turned its back on their concerns - like the rights of transitioning llamas in Patagonia?
Some fascinating pre-hegemonic casting around ensued, desperate searching for ideological themes that would counter the threat. E. Maitlis on Newsnight offered the best set. Wasn't this going back to the 1970s? (the main Tory response so far) -- but then, the 1970s had good welfare and free education, and some might even remember them fondly as a last pre-Thatcher era. Wouldn't it run up a lot of debt -- but then even some economists were saying that the domestic budget and its 'deficit' were no longer important, especially as years of austerity had not reduced public debt anyway. One even said --on Newsnight -- that the whole thing had only led to propping up a hugely bloated finance sector.
She also pointed out that the banks had been nationalised ( some still were) after the 2008 crash, at the cost of hundreds of billions borrowed [so the Government has to be austere in state spending to keep the confidence of the financial markets -- this is one of my beefs with the EU and its disastrous Euro project]
Finally, E Maitlis plyed her trump (sic) card. Would the Labour politician in front of her not admit that this actually looked very much like -- socialism? Would he dare to call himself a socialist? To her blank astonishment he said yes he would, with no apparent apology or anything that resembled even a slight blush of guilt or remorse.
It will be interesting to see which theme plays out over the next few days
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