Courage, Rashness, Arrogance, Delusion and Lunacy
What is the difference between Courage, Rashness, Arrogance, Delusion and Lunacy?
Let me give five examples
Courage
Courage would be for a Labour supporter to support Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader, in the knowledge that his views are not popular, in the hope that by persuasion and leadership Labour can change public opinion (sometimes described as shifting the Overton Window after the late Joe Overton's model of the range of views the public will accept)
Rashness
Rashness is a Conservative "Tories4Corbyn" supporter registering as a Labour one to vote for Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader in the hope that this will make Labour unelectable, and equally applies to a moderate Labour MP nominating him "for a debate" or a Blairite for Corbyn supporting him in the hope that Corbyn will win the leadership, fail even more dramatically than Ed Miliband, and thereby discredit the left and swing the Labour party back to the centre.
All three are or were trying to be too clever, although some of the second group have already admitted that John McTiernan had a point when he called them morons. All three are supporting an outcome that they don't want as part of a game designed to produce something else but all are risking the possibility that they may actively help produce an outcome they would regard as a catastrophe.
Arrogance
Arrogance is a Corbyn supporter proclaiming that the majority of voters were idiots to reject Labour, that "Public opinion is a dim bully" worthy only of contempt, who will come along if the left can only explain with clear conviction to voters how stupid they have been. An example (which is admittedly very well written, with very amusing pen-caricature-assassinations of Corbyn's three opponents), is Ian Martin's piece in the Guardian, "Public Opinion doesn't matter in the Labour Leadership election. I'm following my conscience and Jeremy Corbyn."
Delusion
Delusion is Tony Benn, Jeremy Corbyn, or any of their supporters convincing themselves that the British re-elected Margaret Thatcher, David Cameron or both because Michael Foot, Ed Miliband or both respectively were not left-wing enough.
Lunacy
And finally, Lunacy is Jeremy Corbyn saying in Liverpool on Saturday that Britain's debt doesn't matter and the country could borrow more because “debt is now only 80% of GDP. Under the Attlee government it was 250% of GDP. And they still increased public spending, and so can we”.
Good grief. Debt was through the roof when the Attlee government took over because Britain had just had the combination of the thirties depression followed by the Second World War. That did not make having such a debt burden, let alone increasing it, a good place to be, as they soon found out the hard way.
And Attlee's government had a "Peace Dividend" they could use to set up the welfare state - reducing Britain's armed forces from a wartime level many times the 2% of GDP which we spend on Defence now. There is no equivalent area to cut today - nothing Corbyn would want to cut, anyway.
I've used this graphic about what happens if you borrow too much before but it still makes a good point.
Let me give five examples
Courage
Courage would be for a Labour supporter to support Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader, in the knowledge that his views are not popular, in the hope that by persuasion and leadership Labour can change public opinion (sometimes described as shifting the Overton Window after the late Joe Overton's model of the range of views the public will accept)
Rashness
Rashness is a Conservative "Tories4Corbyn" supporter registering as a Labour one to vote for Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader in the hope that this will make Labour unelectable, and equally applies to a moderate Labour MP nominating him "for a debate" or a Blairite for Corbyn supporting him in the hope that Corbyn will win the leadership, fail even more dramatically than Ed Miliband, and thereby discredit the left and swing the Labour party back to the centre.
All three are or were trying to be too clever, although some of the second group have already admitted that John McTiernan had a point when he called them morons. All three are supporting an outcome that they don't want as part of a game designed to produce something else but all are risking the possibility that they may actively help produce an outcome they would regard as a catastrophe.
Arrogance
Arrogance is a Corbyn supporter proclaiming that the majority of voters were idiots to reject Labour, that "Public opinion is a dim bully" worthy only of contempt, who will come along if the left can only explain with clear conviction to voters how stupid they have been. An example (which is admittedly very well written, with very amusing pen-caricature-assassinations of Corbyn's three opponents), is Ian Martin's piece in the Guardian, "Public Opinion doesn't matter in the Labour Leadership election. I'm following my conscience and Jeremy Corbyn."
Delusion
Delusion is Tony Benn, Jeremy Corbyn, or any of their supporters convincing themselves that the British re-elected Margaret Thatcher, David Cameron or both because Michael Foot, Ed Miliband or both respectively were not left-wing enough.
Lunacy
And finally, Lunacy is Jeremy Corbyn saying in Liverpool on Saturday that Britain's debt doesn't matter and the country could borrow more because “debt is now only 80% of GDP. Under the Attlee government it was 250% of GDP. And they still increased public spending, and so can we”.
Good grief. Debt was through the roof when the Attlee government took over because Britain had just had the combination of the thirties depression followed by the Second World War. That did not make having such a debt burden, let alone increasing it, a good place to be, as they soon found out the hard way.
And Attlee's government had a "Peace Dividend" they could use to set up the welfare state - reducing Britain's armed forces from a wartime level many times the 2% of GDP which we spend on Defence now. There is no equivalent area to cut today - nothing Corbyn would want to cut, anyway.
I've used this graphic about what happens if you borrow too much before but it still makes a good point.
Comments
Seen a facebook Kipper this morning warning about immigration and the calais crisis.
anyway someone answered with this rather amusing take:
"A banker, a worker and an asylum seeker were sat at a table, the waiter brings over a plate of 20 biscuits. The banker immediately takes 19 of them, then turns to the worker and says 'look out the asylum seeker is trying to take your biscuit'"