Doing things differently.

The more  I listen to Jemmy Corbyn the more I like the cut of his jib.
He has a quiet reasoned response to questions from a hostile press. There are no glib throwaway phrases only what to my ear are the result of thinking about such questions for many years and having kept his feet on the ground amongst the people he represents he has some practical answers. His ambit used to be North Islington but it now attracts a much wider audience and the audience is growing.
Insulated by the sound bites of the last 20 years we have become conditioned to a debate which simply contests the phrases used by the other side, a sort of toing and froing which tired us all out as we sought answers to specific problems.
The Corbyn approach to date has been to answer questions not as an antidote to the other side but to start from first principles. It doesn't mean you will hear necessarily what you want to hear but it does mean that you begin to respect the man for holding his reasoned views. He broke the mould at the Labour Party conference by departing from the standard speechifying and held a two hour question and answer session with the floor of the conference. When have we last heard of that as we steadily become more and more Presidential and decisions were made in smoke filled rooms with out regard to the electorate. Even the press are astounded at his chutzpah and his self confidence.
Plato's philosophy believed in debate to reach decisions, the more you could reason with a person the more likely he would go away convinced. The power of convincing a person is far greater than the power of the diktat. The ownership of an idea becomes the theirs and there is a far greater chance that you will be successful if you carry people with you convinced your ideas are theirs.
Will the media let this work ?
The power of the 4th Estate with its daily feed of commentary and opinion makes people lazy to research their own political stamping ground. People are today told what to think and for the majority, the do what they are told. So if the newspapers and the media decide to destroy him, as seems likely he might be still born.
I was listening this morning to an economist deriding John McDonalds (the shadow chancellor) suggestion of using Quantitative Easing to fund projects which will modernise Britain and create jobs. The economist was astounded, how could we do such a risky thing.
In 2007 the banks were put back on their collective feet using Quantitative Easing. The theory was that the banks were the vehicle to pump prime the economy at large and start lending again to Industry and SBVs. The problem arose when the banks, who had singularly created the crash of confidence which brought the financial system down, simply refused to reallocate the QE funds and instead stuffed their own balance sheets with the money so they could start up the casino again.
McDonalds point is that any funds created must be earmarked for business projects designed to improve our competitiveness. If the media are hell bound to wheel out this 'negativity' expounded by the economist this morning, then there is no way to even start a debate as to why we should consider doing things differently .