Budget Disaster: Corbyn Fluffs It?

It is difficult to think of a bigger political disaster than to have the budget unravel within seven days; more so because the Prime Minister had weighed in and defended it. So she may have expected pretty rough handling form the Leader of the Opposition. Instead she more or less reduced him to laughing stock, silenced the benches behind him and left it to Angus Robertson, the SNP leader in the Commons, to provide the soundbite of the day. Screeching U Turn.

Yet if you are a Tory or a Lib Dem, before you laugh yourself silly, understand this. May is a politician. Corbyn is not. He has been a member of the House of Commons since, well for decades, but he has never shown a single attribute of a politician. He is a campaigner for left wing causes in which he believes, a champion of the weak, the forgotten, the poor and the underdog. He has a vision of a different sort of society which puts the collective good above personal gain and believes that the State is a friend not an enemy. That is why he has been elected Labour leader by not one landslide but by two.

If when the general election comes the stars align, as well they might, for a change of direction after years of bungling austerity, he may turn out to be just the person the voters prefer. Because having been lied to over austerity, Brexit, the single market, and all the rubbish painted on that dreadful red bus, the British public may just decide they have had a basinful of slick politicians. Then Corbyn will be a very dangerous adversary.