The first election debate

Subject: The first election debate.

The first TV debate on the political future of this country, should it be a Tory government led by Boris Johnson or the Labour Party government led by Jeremy Corbyn has ended. 
In my view it was won effectively by Mr Corbyn who remained throughout, focused on the questions while his opponent blustered and obfuscated in his usual fashion.
This was not the Oxford Union debating Society, of which Mr Johnson is a past president, it was not a debate in which the participants could squander their time in light hearted banter this was deadly serious stuff, the one man asking for more of the same, the other suggesting that the old ways had been a disaster and a new way to run the country must be found. 
Johnson waffled and bluffed his way through the program, Corbyn was deadly serious as he drafted his ideas with quiet sincerity. In my opinion he won hands down, both as a person I could trust  and as a visionary. His view that the whole UK population should have a stake not only in the process of rebuilding the nation after ten years of Tory dictated austerity but in those rewards which in the last ten years have largely gone to the Hedge Funds and Investment Banking propped up by quantitive easing (taxpayers money pumped in to keep inflation down) The NHS, the care for the elderly, the reversal of the decline in the nations schools, the rebuilding of our capacity to manufacture through investment led schemes whilst also taking back ownership of the essential industries like water, electricity, gas and now, added to the list of essentials, the reach of high speed Internet to everyone as a right and a necessity.
Corbyn seemed completely at home with his brief, Johnson far less so, inclined to those theatrical gestures his mouth rang with platitudes like an actor not sure of his lines but making it up on the hoof. Corbyn was precise even surgical in his responses, unflinching when taunted, clearly on top of his game.
Let's wait to see what the newspaper hacks make of it. The Mail and the Express will, like the monkeys, cover their eyes and ears but unfortunately not their mouths. They are working as I write on their own formulation, their own slant on what I see as black and white, they will see the reverse. The polls put them neck and neck 51 to 49 and of course I ask myself were they watching the same program. Is my socialist bent clouding my objectiveness.  Well of course it does but also, years of painting Corbyn as some evil taskmaster waiting to usher in communism has distorted the image I have of a dedicated man who's driving faith is the search for a better, more equal Britain.