-It was staggered by the magnitude of the Conservative result as I was convinced that the polls had under-represented the Labour vote. Time and time again since Thursday I am hearing people (including former Labour voters) state that they could not stand Corbyn. Listening to Radio 4 on Monday, a comment was made in an interview that the BBC had been biased against Corbyn which merely exacerbated the negative portrayal in the printed press. I think that not electing Corbyn is a national tragedy and the population has missed the boat in implementing some urgently needed and radical reforms. From the start, Kuenssberg has been very hostile towards Jeremy Corbyn and I just felt that the tone of the BBC was very much that Boris could not be trusted yet Labour had no credibility. In my opinion. the BBC has been a mouthpiece for "neo-liberals"for a long while yet the centrist ground held by the Lib Dems proved to be an absolute disaster. I have been staggered at how poorly they performed.
It is very difficult for me to understand what has happened with the Labour vote. You would have had to have been ignorant not to have rooted for what was contained within the Labour manifesto. It was the best manifesto I can ever recall yet there was a perception that what was on offer was not credible. For many people, Corbyn was stupidly seen as being a terrorist sympathiser and anti-semantic yet no one ever commented why the Labour party had room for an organisation like "Labour Friends of Israel." For me, the anti-semantic criticism was a non-issue conjured up by a media desperate to discredit Corbyn's credentials and , for all the attention in the press, I have only heard one person say that this was an issue for them. Fellow Labour MP like Margaret Hodge should be kicked out of the party as they have contributed to this defeat with their constant harping. It disgusted me that she seemed to put her own interests before that of the country and she should be deselected as quickly as it possible. I see the problem being that the Brexit issue underlined problems with Nationalism that had not been helped by an intransigent EU that did not once consider what it needed to do to ensure that the British population's perception of it could be improved. For me, this issue was outside the control of Labour.
Criticism of Jeremy Corbyn is totally unjust. He effectively gave the Labour Party it's soul back and rather than being vilified, this is a gentleman that should be applauded for what he was trying to do. During the campaign the most credible of all the politicians was John Mc Donnell yet no one seemed to listen to what he was saying. He was the voice of reason throughout the campaign.
Once Brexit has been completed, I am in no doubt that the tide will rapidly turn against the Tories. The next election will yield a similar majority but this time for the Labour Party as people will experience the impact of Brexit and the constituencies in the North suffer the full blow. For this reason, I think the tack of the party should not be changed. Some of the proposed candidates like the obnoxious Thornberry and centrist Starmer are not the solution and I think that RLB is exactly the kind of tonic that is needed.
