I’m not sure a Jeremy Corbyn led Labour Party is equipped to endure the white heat of a six week general election campaign
Labour leader @JeremyCorbyn reluctantly answers a question from @DMcCaffreySKY on #TrainGate https://t.co/nLPGEP48Xs
— Sky News (@SkyNews) August 24, 2016
Under Jeremy Corbyn Labour are ceasing to be a serious political party and in danger of turning into a The Thick Of It tribute
Perhaps I’m being unduly harsh on Jeremy Corbyn, but the clip above of his press conference yesterday was a mixture of the downright embarrassing and painful to watch, all because of Traingate. All politicians make gaffes, or their spin gets unspun, but the whole traingate farrago isn’t an exception and his response to it does not inspire confidence in him or his team.
Take this mistake on Monday by Corbyn that was overshadowed by other things, it fits a pattern of a lack of competence by Corbyn and his staff.
US Senator Bernie Sanders has denied sending Jeremy Corbyn a message of support in his battle with Owen Smith for the Labour leadership.
Corbyn told supporters on Monday evening the former Democratic presidential candidate had been in touch to point out the parallels between the two men.
However a spokesman for Senator Sanders told The Huffington Post UK today: “The senator didn’t send a message and doesn’t intend to get involved in British politics.”
The spokesman added that Senator Sanders, who lost out to Hillary Clinton in the race to be the Democratic presidential nominee, “has a lot of respect for Mr. Corbyn and wishes him well”.
A spokesperson for the Corbyn campaign told HuffPost: “Jeremy was misinformed by an aide, who had wrongly been led to believe this was the case.”
A good leader could have dealt with it, the original sin of sitting down on the floor when there were seats available was a bit like David Cameron early in his leadership of the Tory Party cycling to Parliament with his car and chauffeur behind him but it didn’t do any lasting damage to Cameron because Cameron had strengths and public support elsewhere to deflect the criticism.
A decent Labour leader would have ruthlessly exploited the Tory fault lines on Brexit, especially when two out of the three Brexit ministers are Liam Fox and David Davis.
It isn’t hard to see why Jeremy Corbyn has such poor ratings on this week’s performances, he’s confirmed he doesn’t look like a Prime Minister in waiting. Gravitas is a lot like pornography, it is hard to describe or define, but you know when you see it, Corbyn lacks gravitas.
What happens in the televised debates for the 2020 general election campaign? Will he turn on the voters who ask him awkward questions or questions on topics he’d rather not discuss? If he thinks he gets to choose the questions journalists or the public get to ask him he’s in the wrong profession.
And this is all before we contemplate how 172 Labour MPs who have no confidence in their leader comport themselves during a general election campaign.