Stephen Pollard, Editor of the Jewish Chronicle, on his Corbyn Dilemma
I wrote a few days ago in a post called The right and wrong way to respond to Labour" about the dilemma which Jeremy Corbyn poses to members of other parties.
There is a popular perception - which in usual times is right more often than not - that politicians agree with one another more often than they make out and have to magnify their differences to make elections interesting.
With Jeremy Corbyn, his opponents have the opposite problem. For most of us, if we say exactly what we really think about the leader of Her Majesty's opposition it is likely to come over as a hysterical personal attack at best or a smear at worst.
One of the reasons Brandon Lewis was wise to introduce the "respect" pledge for Conservative candidates is that, particularly after one or two people very foolishly attacked the Labour leader without getting their facts quite right, criticism which is seen by the electorate as over the top is more likely to help than hinder the person criticised. As Margaret Thatcher said
What I had not realised until I read the article linked to below by Stephen Pollard is that journalists have exactly the same problem in dealing with Jeremy Corbyn that his political opponents have.
And not just "right-wing" journalists. Stephen Pollard used to be an open supporter of the Labour party - though I do not know how he votes now.
Explaining why he didn't put the latest story about Labour and Anti-Semitism on the Jewish Chronicle (JC) front page, he writes in an article called "My Jeremy Corbyn Dilemma" that
"Over the past couple of years, we have exposed numerous Corbynite antisemites.
"The truth is that we could have such a story almost weekly.
"But I am acutely conscious that there is a perverse side to this – that the more it’s reported, and the more we go big on it, the more it is then discounted as just par for the course.
"It’s as if the market has priced in all this sort of thing into his share price, so when more emerges the response is a shrug of the shoulders and a ‘tell us something we don’t know’.
"So despite the view of some Corbynites that the JC never stops banging on about their hero, the reality is the opposite. We run far, far less about him and Labour’s antisemitism issue than the story probably deserves, precisely to avoid it dominating the paper."
There is a popular perception - which in usual times is right more often than not - that politicians agree with one another more often than they make out and have to magnify their differences to make elections interesting.
With Jeremy Corbyn, his opponents have the opposite problem. For most of us, if we say exactly what we really think about the leader of Her Majesty's opposition it is likely to come over as a hysterical personal attack at best or a smear at worst.
One of the reasons Brandon Lewis was wise to introduce the "respect" pledge for Conservative candidates is that, particularly after one or two people very foolishly attacked the Labour leader without getting their facts quite right, criticism which is seen by the electorate as over the top is more likely to help than hinder the person criticised. As Margaret Thatcher said
and we have plenty of political arguments to deploy about why a hard-left government would be a disaster for Britain without using personal ones. Plus we must not let even constructive criticism of the other side crowd out putting forward our own positive policies and achievements.
What I had not realised until I read the article linked to below by Stephen Pollard is that journalists have exactly the same problem in dealing with Jeremy Corbyn that his political opponents have.
And not just "right-wing" journalists. Stephen Pollard used to be an open supporter of the Labour party - though I do not know how he votes now.
Explaining why he didn't put the latest story about Labour and Anti-Semitism on the Jewish Chronicle (JC) front page, he writes in an article called "My Jeremy Corbyn Dilemma" that
"Over the past couple of years, we have exposed numerous Corbynite antisemites.
"The truth is that we could have such a story almost weekly.
"But I am acutely conscious that there is a perverse side to this – that the more it’s reported, and the more we go big on it, the more it is then discounted as just par for the course.
"It’s as if the market has priced in all this sort of thing into his share price, so when more emerges the response is a shrug of the shoulders and a ‘tell us something we don’t know’.
"So despite the view of some Corbynites that the JC never stops banging on about their hero, the reality is the opposite. We run far, far less about him and Labour’s antisemitism issue than the story probably deserves, precisely to avoid it dominating the paper."
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