Corbyn was What?

If Jeremy Corbyn was right about one thing it was in following the footsteps of one of his heroes, Lenin. Whether or not Lenin actually originated the saying “A lie told often enough becomes the truth” is immaterial; that it was his modus operandi is pretty much indisputable. And so it has been for countless other manipulators of public perception, for we humans are depressingly fallible when it comes to which lies we accept and which we reject.

In most cases we willingly embrace the untruths that confirm our beliefs while rejecting those which do not. And if you can persuade a crowd, a movement, even, to accept your dogma, why then, cult status is not so very far away. That Corbynism is/was a cult is a hard thesis to dispute. His adherents, well, adhere to the astonishment of his detractors in much the same way as the followers of Sun Myung Moon did. From the outside, hard Corbynites look as assuredly brainwashed as do the acolytes of any whacky pseudo-religious sect.

But from the warm, comforting bosom of the beast their mutually reinforcing aphorisms are balm to the soul. Jeremy the new Messiah would have healed the world had the Tory centurions not crucified him. Without his wagging finger there is nothing in the way of the Tories’ plan to sell off every hospital and dispossess every NHS worker of their livelihood. The dying planet will accelerate toward its inevitable, fiery end without the miracle of Jezza’s fierce intellect. The homeless will remain unhoused in Boris Hitler’s Britain.

And so drones on the outpouring of misery and dejection under the hashtag #CorbynWasRight. But, of course, we will never know. I say ‘we’ will never know because the prescient philosophers of Corbynism are true believers. They just know that Magic Grandpa never told a lie, always wielded a straight bat and was going to build a new world order absolutely for the many not the Jew few. They know it in their hearts and with all the wisdom this largely millennial generation can muster they see that Jeremy is good and kind and gentle and true.

Well, perhaps except for the bits about always backing the enemies of peace and harmony, but nobody’s a saint, right? Telling the parodies from the real tearful tirades is getting harder as the most outrageous of accusations are levelled at Boris. All you have to do is make up an outrageous lie about something they care about – Johnson plans to legislate to make diesel compulsory on all public transport near schools, for instance – and out will come the slogan writers and the meme generators.

Mostly, though, their angst appears to be centred on the NHS, their great shibboleth being that the Prime Minister is intent on selling it off wholesale, or if no principal buyer is found, piecemeal. “What am I bid for Nurse #32108?” and “Who will give me 50p for this kidney bowl?” perhaps. When the new year rolls out and Dominic Cummins’ instruction to his team of special advisers to make the NHS a success at all costs begins to return dividends, do you think the weeping dervishes will applaud? Or do you think it is more likely that it will somehow be the wrong sort of success?

How does one choose?

As I tweeted out, Boris could issue each and every one of them a unicorn which shits glitter and all they would do would be to complain about the mucking out. He could build a million council houses and they would demand a million more. He could enact every one of Corbyn’s social justice pledges and they would insist that he had done the exact opposite. They say misery loves company and I can think of no more miserable company than that of earnest leftists who have swallowed every lie. So, while it still lasts, do yourself a solid and have a look at what those crazy kids are saying now. #CorbynWasRight