The man elected eight times who we're supposed to believe is unelectable

Is Jeremy Corbyn electable? Trivially so. His constituents keep electing him. They do so in ever-greater numbers. They've done it eight times. "Unelectable" is not a useful charge to levy against a man who keeps getting elected. As well say that the sea is dry or that fish fly south for the winter. 

Ah, but. Islington North is not Britain, the argument goes. Islington North is an unrepresentative bubble of weird, rich, London left-wingers. The country as a whole will never elect a left-wing politician. 

Which would be debatable (not true, but at least debatable), if Scotland hadn't just elected 56 of them. Check out the manifesto that a handful of months ago wiped all of the other (indistinguishable, centre-right, neoliberal) parties off the Scottish political map. End austerity and raise taxes. Fund the welfare state and the NHS. Scrap Trident. It's not a strikingly dissimilar policy agenda to this one. The argument that people won't vote for this left-wing lunacy also falls down at the existence proof stage. They just did it. This manifesto just swept an entire country.

Ah, but. Scotland is not Britain either. Not Islington North, nor any part of Scotland (from the city of Glasgow to the remoter stretches of the Highlands). Presumably the approximately 47 other Labour MPs considered "genuinely left wing" are also elected by unrepresentative parts of the country, from Bolsover to Tottenham. Somewhere, possibly in Surrey, is that elusively "representative" constituency that would never elect a politician to the left of Norman Tebbit. 

It is the last resort of a political elite, terrified that they are about to face an actual dissenting voice. "You can't vote for that, no-one wants that, you're wasting your vote". I think, perhaps, that we are not. Lots of people want that. A whole country, offered that, just voted for it. Islington North has voted for it eight times in a row. Corbyn is perfectly electable. We're just not supposed to believe it in case we elect him. 

(Photo credit: Chris Beckett on Flickr)