Diary – 20 August 2015

This is the Corbyn summer. From the perspective of a short holiday, my overwhelming feeling is one of despair at my own semi-trade — the political commentariat, the natterati, the salaried yacketting classes. Who among us, really, predicted that Jeremy Corbyn would be romping ahead like this? Where were the post-election columns pointing out that David Cameron’s victory would lead to a resurgent quasi-Marxist left?

And that’s just the beginning: how many of the well-connected, sophisticated, numerate political writers expected Labour to be slaughtered in the general election? Not me, that’s for sure. Going further back, how many people in 1992 told us John Major was an election winner? That Parris, I vaguely recall, but anyone else? It’s jolly lucky that we don’t have an Of-Burble to regulate us.

I’m not saying that nobody successfully predicts anything; that would be bizarre. But I exclude all those throwaway on-the-other-hand remarks merely designed to cover the commentator’s backside.