James O’Brien v “cretinous” Corbyn and socialist Sanders (video)

“Long-term economic plan”, “tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime”, “weaponise the NHS” – like it or not, in these days of spin rooms, soundbites and political PR advisers we have become accustomed to a certain style of political messaging. Many of us have railed against this simplistic and condescending approach and the automaton politicians that are their inevitable outcome. But even though we regularly hear demands for a return to a more honest form of politics and a higher degree of integrity from the political class, we can’t handle it when it finally arrives.

There is little doubt that Jeremy Corbyn‘s leadership of the Labour party, thus far, has been marked by a number of what I will charitably call public relations missteps. But far more notable is the all out assault by the mainstream media on him, largely not for his policies but for everything from his clothing to his brother’s climate change denial, to his simple common decency and frequently through the use of lies and innuendo.

Because of this, I regularly find that my time on social media is spent attempting (in my minuscule way) to highlight and deconstruct the MSM bias against Corbyn and organised misrepresentation of his progressive “democratic socialist” politics. To do this I rely on the excellent offices of primary data sources, fact checkers and, in particular, the saner elements of the news media.

Until recently, I considered one of those saner journalists to be LBC’s James O’Brien. I have commented on a few occasions about how O’Brien’s form of evidence-based prognosticating on his daytime show is to be commended, but when it comes to Corbyn he seems to have fallen hook, line and sinker for the right-wing media meme.

@Rimbeux @Dannythefink Yes, almost all of my favourite commentators are of the right, inc Danny. Akin to the paucity of right-wing comedians
— James O'Brien (@mrjamesob) January 20, 2016

That is not to say that I disagree with O’Brien’s analysis that, as it stands, Corbyn will not be Britain’s prime minister in 2020 – Labour’s new leader has a long way to go to persuade the country that he is the man with a realistic plan before that can happen. It is his apparent wholesale acceptance of the MSM presentation of Corbyn as a chaotic clown (for example his failure to recognise that the Trident submarines without nuclear warheads media pantomime was a Tory ruse) or that the rise of Corbyn and that of the self-declared democratic socialist Bernie Sanders could be in any related) that disappoints.

I don’t think it is unfair to call the four of O’Brien’s Corbyn based shows that I have heard “attacks” on the Corbyn leadership rather than critiques but you can judge for yourself in the two clips about Corbyn below.

Corbyn the “cretin”

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