Blog 2023 Malcolm Blair-Robinson

Certain media will have have a feast on news that Corbyn has ducked the ceremony associated with becoming a member of the Privy Council. An insult to the Queen and so on. No, not at all. Corbyn is not an opportunist politician. He has not changed his tune to gain popularity. He has sat in the Commons for thirty years saying exactly the same things and proclaiming his ideology without reference to what people think. He has made the unusual journey from nut case to Leader of the Opposition not because he has moved towards popular opinion, but because popular opinion has moved towards him. In unprecedented numbers. He is a lifelong republican. Above all he is a man of principle who stands by his beliefs no matter what the political weather or popular spin.

The Queen knows that. She will not feel insulted nor snubbed because she understands Corbyn’s difficulty. That is why she will agree to his appointment by Order In Council, without all the kissing and kneeling. In fact if the truth be told, surrounded as she is by fawning courtiers and oily politicians whom even she does not trust, Her Majesty finds him rather refreshing.

There was something rather surreal about David Cameron’s speech yesterday. Much of it was admirable and far to the left of any modern definition of what a Tory is. Macmillan would have been heartened. Thatcher would have scoffed. She had a word for Tories who leaned left. Wet. There was certainly nothing wet about Teresa May’s speech the day before. In reality she and Cameron were saying opposite things, as many commentators have already remarked.

The other aspect of Cameron’s speech which intrigues is that it does not link up with most of his government’s economic programme which, without modification, not only cannot possibly deliver the good things to which Cameron aspires, but actually prohibits them. Unless he knows something we don’t. Could Osborne have a rabbit in his hat for the Autumn Spending Review?