What is it, psychologically, that makes it so hard for Jeremy Corbyn to recognise that some of his supporters are horrible people with horrible views (in this case, raving anti-Semites)? I remember asking myself the same question, in the early 1980s, about Tony Benn. I used to attend Labour party conferences and their numerous left-wing fringe meetings (often addressed by Benn’s no. 1 fan, J. Corbyn). Benn was always there, always courteous, genially smoking his pipe. Often, however, his supporters would say extremist things, and sometimes they would yell foul abuse — either at party and trade union moderates or at the media. Never once was Benn vile himself, but never once did he rebuke those who were. I watched him closely when rabble-rousers like Arthur Scargill or Derek Hatton stirred up hatred or when people like Eric Hammond of the Electricians Union were shouted down. He would just sit there smiling. I concluded that Benn, for all his personal niceness, craved power and he thought these people would win it for him. In 1981, they nearly did. I also noticed that he was tremendously vain, in the way that only people who think they are righteous can be. He was Saved, so his followers must be too. Mr Corbyn seems to be a chip off the old block.
Rachel Sylvester of the Times is a brilliant journalist. I am proud to have given her her first Lobby job. But I cannot help smiling at her columns as she searches desperately for signs that a party which she thinks virtuous — centre-left, pro-European, with ‘open’ values — could rise from the dead (this, literally, is her metaphor in Easter week). Rachel’s current candidate for Messiah is David Miliband, who lives in New York.
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