The Spectator Podcast: The Corbyn delusion

On this week’s bumper episode we discuss the cult of Corbyn, sharia courts, the golden age of gossip, and orchid delirium.

First: in this week’s magazine Rod Liddle examines the phenomenon that is Jeremy Corbyn, and describes how he has brought Labour voters together in a ‘bizarre coalition’. To discuss this subject, we were joined by Hugo Rifkind, who writes his column this week on witnessing Jeremy Corbyn at Glastonbury, and Ellie Mae O’Hagan, a Corbyn supporting journalist. As Hugo writes:

“Honestly, the whole Corbyn thing still does my head in. I understand what his adoring fans believe he represents, but I’m buggered if I can figure out why they think he represents it. Why not do a better speech? Why not get some help, craft some uplifting lines, have a crack at immortality? Decades from now, researching now, historians will watch that speech, baffled, trying to figure out what the hell was going on. How, they will ask, did a man with nothing much to say and no talent for saying it manage to attract crowds like that? What did they all think they were getting out of it? Why did they decide he was the one?”