Corbyn v Smith

Having watched the first debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Owen Smith I have been struck for the first time by the woodenness of Corbyns debating skills.

I have listened to him in the past from his position on the back benches in Parliament argue with genuine passion about some cause or other he was espousing. He stood out from the front bench Labour leadership who always seemed to be arguing over peripheral issues making them sound more like that part of the Tory family who come over at holiday time  but are seen as the outcast in terms of real Tory values. 

Brought up under the shadow of Tony Blair who sang from the centre left of the Tory party hymn book a large section of the parliamentary Labour Party seemed to argue not with their hearts but because they were paid to do so. Their rhetoric was just that, oratory eloquence but without much bite or passion.

Corbyn was a man cast in the old mould, "a man of the people" who had conviction and wasn't about to tack away when a political squall blew up.
Perhaps his views on disarmament were a trifle simplistic, seeing mankind as being more benign than they are, he wished for a better arrangement putting all his hopes in Plan A with little thought to Plan B. 

Never the less he was a breath of fresh air after the moribund performance of Labour in the face of UKIP and the Tory Party.

Corbyn has been under tremendous pressure not only from the opposition but hurtfully from where he should least expect it, his own parliamentary  colleagues. When your own family engage in giving you a kicking, it must make you despair. He of course was never one of them and when his name went forward as a fourth candidate, a sort of sop to the left, no one thought he had a chance. Somehow his oratory in the towns and villages across the country struck a cord and a following such has not been seen in parliamentary circles of any colour for a long time, denying the paid up MP their assumption of power. 

The Corbynistas as they became known, have been remarkably loyal in the face of some scurrilous reporting in the press and media. A none stop onslaught of denigration and ridicule has been been heaped on his head, an example of the dirty tactics paid out in politics, particularly if you are seen to be 'anti status quo'.

The contest within the Labour Party as to who should be leader is like the BREXIT debate, subject to interpretation. The MPs don't like him, whilst the rank and file think he is refreshing, a man cut from their own cloth.

The debate to see who should lead the party, Corbyn or the MPs choice, Owen Smith, a little known Welsh MP who seems to have come out of nowhere opened yesterday.

Watching the first debate I was surprised to hear how resoundingly socialist Smith was and how resolute he sounded in the way the Blairites had become trite. He took the fight for the countries 'resources' back into the towns which are struggling to exist, he turned away from the metropolitan straight jacket of being London centric. He wasn't afraid to mention taxation and making those who can pay, pay. He didn't shy away from the mantra that the city pages make of taxation and the dangers of losing all our native talent abroad he said, as the BREXIT referendum vote proclaimed, "what will be will be", "don't be afraid of your own shadow" "stand tall and believe in what you feel is right".

Corbyn seemed, as I said wooden in his responses. He appeared to be consulting his notes, even reading from a prepared script. He had none of the open oratory, none of the spontaneity, he didn't engage the audience with eye contact, he seemed shut off in his ideological space.

It's this taciturn trait where he seems to reserve communication for his ideological bed-fellows, communication which is rich in motivation but remote unless you are plugged in to what his beliefs are.

So the question is does he have the charisma to sell his policies to the public or should the party look elsewhere for leadership. One of the benefits of the turmoil of the last few months in the Labour Party has been that it has shook up the party and dislodged some of the old wood that had been hanging on since the fall of the Blair/Brown pact. The old sound bite crew who wouldn't have been able to espouse an original thought if they ever had one. 

I was impressed by Owen Smith and look forward to see how he projects himself in the debates to come.