The media shitstorm around Andrea Leadsom is astonishing.
Talk about playing the man. Every tiny scrap of, well, anything is being
pimped-up and spun and presented as evidence of some sort of Hitlerian
dominatrix complex. She’s – by media accounts – a liar, a hypocrite, a religious
fundamentalist, a fifth columnist for Ukip, a racist and a homophobe. According
to various sources she believes that children of unmarried parents will grow up
to become axe murderers, that gay marriage will end civilisation and she has no
hesitation in exploiting her own children for political advantage. She is, they
say, a female Farage.
She is certainly like Nigel Farage in one respect – the relentless
and downright vicious personal attacks have a remarkable similarity to the way
he was pilloried by the bien pensant
press for years. The establishment are out to get her. Meanwhile their favourite
placewoman, Theresa May, is continuing in much the way she has conducted her ministerial
career by remaining largely out of sight. Unlike Farage, however, Andrea
Leadsom hasn’t had years to build up a following, demonstrate consistency and
earn the loyalty of members.
The Firm, however, is still clearly worried. Recently
the smugness with which they could expect the electorate to be hectored into
voting ‘correctly’ has been eroded and superior smirks wiped from privileged faces.
The rolling out of big guns from the past to berate the stupid voters and
instruct them to do their bidding has had the effect not of a bulldozer flattening dissent but a peashooter. The public at large have remained
unimpressed by headline acts but they have noticed one very peculiar thing.
When the elites on opposing sides get together to train
their weapons on the little people who vastly outnumber them it smacks of
desperation. It’s either a spectacularly brilliant double-bluff – maybe they
secretly wanted Brexit, or Corbyn for leader – or far more likely it is a cock
up of monumental proportions. Had they actually been listening, that rumble in
the distance and getting nearer is the gathering stampede of millions of people
saying no. No to politics as usual – in this respect Corbyn is dead right. They
are saying no to the systematic abuse of parliamentary powers to do the
opposite of what ordinary people want.
No, too, to being told how to behave, what they can and
can’t say and what to think. They are saying no to the intrusive powers the
state has taken upon itself to rip up our social fabric and engineer the pushing
into second place of British culture behind that of any interloper. They are
saying no to inferior education and life chances and no to the recasting of the
British in history as the bad guys. They are exercising the very thing the
establishment hates; democracy.
Has the electoral tide turned?
So, when the selection goes out to the party members, the
blizzard of ‘helpful’ information about why not to vote for Leadsom may just
prove to have been counter-productive. It doesn’t take so long for everything a
hostile press has to offer to simply be ignored. On the other hand, while the
newcomer may be a relative unknown, so in many ways is Theresa May. This lack
of engagement by the grey lady of the Conservative Party might just be her
downfall. The party doesn’t’ have to say yes to Leadsom; they just have to say
no to May.
