In response to, Nick Wood: Comrade Corbyn will consign Labour to the wilderness for a generation, Politically__Incorrect wrote:
I’d like to take a different angle on this story. It troubles me not one jot to see Labour ripping itself apart and I share none of Comrade Corbyn’s views. But what is going on here? Why are so many Labour supporters choosing a leader who will take them to electoral defeat again? I think the attraction of Corbyn to his supporters is not just his policies but the fact he actually believes in them. He is an old-style socialist who believes in the utopian fantasies of the Left. He is not a technocrat or a follower of public opinion. That at least makes him distinctive.
I can’t help wondering if a Tory leadership candidate would get the same treatment. A candidate that wanted to go back to more traditional and distinctly Conservative values on matters such as the economics and the morals of say the 1940s. Would he / she be ridiculed too as old-fashioned and regressive? Would it rip the Conservative Party apart?
My point is that this is not just about the Left vs Right thing, it’s also about “progressives” vs “regressives”. If Corbyn fails to take his party back to its roots then could a Tory leader achieve it with the Conservative Party? Maybe we are doomed to a two-party state where the main difference between them is the colour of their logos.
