In a wonderfully dry manual of theology on my husband’s bookshelves, written in Latin and printed in Naples in the 1830s, there is a discussion of whether ‘rustics and idiots’ are supported in their belief by ‘motives of credibility’, such as miracles. The same question has been asked about belief in Jeremy Corbyn, except that the city stands in for the country, and the idiots are often useful ones.
‘I am the only candidate who can offer a bold but credible vision,’ Andy Burnham has said. ‘I’ll have the confidence to reject Tory myths and the credibility to demolish them,’ countered Yvette Cooper. John Curtice, the political scientist, noticed that Labour MPs think Mr Corbyn’s ‘economic policy is not credible’. But credibility should be applicable to candidates as well as their policies. This double application of credible, to men and to evidence, is no new discovery of politics; in the 15th century, both meanings were used in their letters by members of the Paston family.
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