Kinder, Gentler, Screwier
I listened to Jeremy Corbyn's speech to the annual Labour conference yesterday and came away with the impression that 'Jezza' is a strange cross between Forrest Gump, Elmer Fudd and Elmer Gantry.
Now there were things that Jeremy said with which I agreed, for example his call for the UK Government to condemn the threatened beheading of a young Saudi man, Ali Mohammed Baqir al-Nimr, for taking part in political protests against the Saudi Arabian Government.
But this is cheap politics, playing to the gallery, rather than a serious stand against the intolerance of religious theocracies in parts of the Islamic world, where human rights and minority rights have little, if any, meaning.
Otherwise the Labour leader would have something to say about the role of Iran which issued a 'fatwa' (a call to murder) against the British Indian author Salman Rushdie, or the cold-blooded murder of secular bloggers by Islamist fanatics in Bangladesh, for example.
So while Jeremy was happy to take pot shots at easy targets, he had nothing of any substance to say about the UK economy or the real elephant in the room:
"Why did Labour lost the last general election so spectacularly, under it previous leader Ed Miliband whose political programme that looks eerily similar to that of Project Corbyn.
Like other viewers I enjoyed Jeremy's quotes from Maya Angelou and Ben Okri, which brightened up an otherwise dull and boring affair, but when you boil it all down this was more of a plea for everyone to much 'nicer' to one another than a serious political speech.
Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny |
Burt Lancaster as Elmer Gantry |