Any Questions - Any Answer

Listening to "Any Questions" on the radio and the follow up program, "Any Answers" which invites the listener to ring in with their opinion on the questions asked on Any Questions one is often struck by the gulf which lies between the professional and the members of the public. "Any Answers" offers the politician or a member of the political commentariat  a platform to spout their professional opinion and as opinions tumble out of their mouths they are soon replaced by sound bites. "Any Answers" is a very different animal. The public ringing in are not in the business of proffering their ideas for personal advantage but are truly held opinion on what they had just heard.
Jeremy Corbyn and the travails of the Labour Party was one of the questions and I was struck by the dissimilarity of the members on the panel, who were the members of parliament and the people ringing in. The quality of the "phone in" and the apparent sophistication of the people calling, set against the sound bites of the professional panel was striking. The Establishment and its foot soldiers the Fourth Estate (the press and media) are continuous in their clamour against the fitness of Corbyn  for Leadership and to listen to them the whole country, like many of Corbyns fellow MPs, are dismayed at his performance so far. It was so rewarding to hear caller after caller ring in to say they supported Corbyn and felt there was a sense of rebirth within the country for politics, particularly amongst the young where the same old faces and the worn cliches had turned them off and made them sceptical. Corbyn and John McDonnell the Shadow Finance Minister has struck a cord with thousands of new voters, voters who were prepared to fork out £12 to join the party,(an increase of 200%), an increase imposed by the party apparatchik to try to limit the people willing to pay and show their support for Corbyn  but which backfired as record numbers (now over 600.000) paid and joined.
The airwaves and the press are unyielding in their non stop barrage against the man as if he were some evil messiah which I suppose he is if he is about to upset their cozy world of half truth and lies which describe what is supposed to be communication.