Since 1974, the British Labour party has had only two types of leader: those who have embarrassed themselves and lost dramatically to the Tories, and Tony Blair. By electing Jeremy Corbyn to guide them into the future, Labour has committed itself to the maintenance of this unnecessary dichotomy.
In The Road to Wigan Pier, George Orwell outlined brilliantly the sincere threat that unpalatable public representatives posed to the advance of British socialism. “It would help enormously,” Orwell contended, “if the smell of crankishness which still clings to the Socialist movement could be dispelled.” “If only the sandals and the pistachio-coloured shirts could be put in a pile and burnt,” he lamented, “and every vegetarian, teetotaller, and creeping Jesus sent home to Welwyn Garden City to do his yoga exercises quietly,” then the Left might finally be given a fair chance to convince the public that it had their best interests at heart. Alas, in the absence of such a purge, its message would remain “buried beneath layer after layer of doctrinaire priggishness, party squabbles, and half-baked ‘progressivism’ until it [resembled] a diamond hidden under a mountain of dung.”
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