Redscat wrote:
Very interesting interview with Deputy Labour Leader on Andrew Marr show this morning; a genuine politician and nice guy who, like Jeremy Corbyn was vilified by the National press ever since they came to power four years ago.
The Tory press ie The Sun (can't even call that a newspaper), The Daily Mail, The Daily telegraph etc etc have all made it their prime intention to blacken the character of Corbyn and McDonald with lies and part truths to the point where a large percentage of the population say they hate them and cannot vote for a party led by them, but none of these people seem to be able to say why they hate them. It's because 80% of this county's Press is owned by the Establishment and they don't like their cosy, privileged, little world to be ruffled in anyway.
Corbyn and McDonnell were made to appear as ogres yet decent people of this country have been cajoled into voting for a lying, priviliged, philandering coward who hates the working class and hides in fridges to avoid awkward questions.
Never has so many been fooled by so few.
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The press will always savage a Labour leader. They work hard to create a caricature that sticks and then attack it relentlessly. It's just the reality that Labour have to deal with. The only way to deal with it is to have a leader who is sufficiently credible to minimise it, which Blair for all his faults, was: a natural communicator.
As a result we're now hearing familiar analysis from Labour. "People on the doorsteps were saying they didn't mind our policies....it was the leader".
Exactly the same that they said about Kinnock - "the Welsh windbag". Ed Miliband "Red Ed". The tabloids made easy caricatures of them and in the end it stuck.
What is making me laugh now is all these Labour figures saying "we need to come out of our metropolitan bubble and start listening to working class communities again". Then in their next breath they say "the next leader has to be a woman". Now....is that because they've been listening to working class communities who said what we want is a female leader, or is it the metropolitan bubble saying we need a female leader to make us look diverse. That will appeal to metropolitan liberals but the rest of the country literally doesn't give a toss about the leader's gender.
What the gender issue does do though is create more problems with a hostile media, because the media is always tougher on women than men. Look at Hilary Clinton in the US, or how Theresa May got vilified for her attempts to bring back deals from the EU but Boris got hailed as a genius for bringing back his (which conceded things that May hadn't!).
The media is going to have some easy tropes to use against female leaders:
- blonde airhead
- stroppy cow
- pompous old bat
This may be harsh but if Labour is thinking of any leader who could be even slightly painted by the right wing media in to any of those tropes, then I'll see you in 2024 for the analysis of, "the leader was a problem on the doorstep".
it’s getting very boring now.
