To the guillotine, citizens! Corbyn's revolution is following the logic of all revolutions

Embed from Getty Images

The Labour Party has experienced a revolution - and we all know what happens after revolutions.

The philosopher and former Labour and SDP MP Bryan Magee spelt it out in his Confessions of a Philosopher:

There is a situational logic to revolutions. Disparate groups unite to overthrow an existing regime, but once they have succeeded in doing so the cause that brought them together has gone, and they then fight one another to fill the power vacuum that they themselves have created. These internecine struggles, usually savage, among erstwhile allies perpetuate the revolutionary breakdown of society far beyond the overthrow of the old regime, and delay the establishment of a new order. 

The population at large begins to feel threatened by unending social chaos, and in these circumstances a strong man who can bring the warring factions to heel and impose order comes forward and meets with widespread support, or at least acquiescence. Thus a revolution carried out in the name of civil liberties, or equality, or to bring a tyranny to and end, will itself end by putting into power a Cromwell, a Napoleon or a Stalin. 

All revolutions are uncontrollable, and all revolutions are betrayed. It is in their nature that these things should be so.

I suspect that this will be true of Labour's revolution too.

The population at large is already turning to the Theresa May as their strong woman. Maybe the Labour membership will eventually so the same. Step forward Dan Jarvis?

I would add that the failure of the revolution is always blamed on sabotage and the new regime takes brutal action against the supposed culprits. Once they have been eliminated, the people are told, all the promises of a better world that accompanied the revolution will be fulfilled.

This evening a Corbyn rally booed the name of Sadiq Khan, whose victory in London was Labour's greatest triumph in more than a decade.

I suppose the idea is that once saboteurs like him and Owen Smith and the Blairites have been liquidated, the Labour Party will be free to turn its fire on the Tories and win an election. Then we shall we publicly owned railways, a free national education service and world peace by negotiation.

But for the time being, comrades, boo the traitor Khan.

Six of the Best 617

"I'm not opposed to excellence. But the price of your Grammar Schools is too high," says Steve Guy. (We had a Midland Educational in Leicester too.)

Paddy French looks at how Owen Smith's family connections in the Welsh political and media elite have helped his career,

"The barely veiled implication, whichever version you consider, is that the people undergoing these travails deserve relatively little sympathy." Alec MacGillis and ProPublica on the demonisation of poor white Americans.

Neil MacFarquhar looks at new evidence about the fate of Raoul Wallenberg.

Fake news stories from Kremlin propagandists regularly become social media trends, say Andrew Weisburd and Clint Watts.

Ales Cox looks back 30 years to the making of his film Sid and Nancy.

Labour: Now the two unity candidates are fighting each other

Embed from Getty Images

From tomorrow's Observer:

The Labour party has been engulfed by fresh infighting as the camps of the two potential “unity candidates” set to fight Jeremy Corbyn for the leadership embarked on their own war of words. 

On the eve of a pivotal week for the party, one MP supporting Angela Eagle accused rival Owen Smith of using “sneaky tactics” to manoeuvre himself into being the sole challenger. 

Meanwhile a senior MP supporting Smith claimed there was an overwhelming consensus that only one candidate should emerge, and warned that currently supportive MPs would not give Eagle their nomination if she did not swiftly recognise the situation. 

"Angela needs to be very careful," said the source. "I can understand her position having come out first, but it is not a question of who deserves to be leader; it is about the best possible candidate to beat Jeremy."

On the surface it is funny: deep down it is tragic.

But I am increasingly coming to the conclusion that it will take at least one defeat under a hard left leader to bring the Labour membership to its senses.

And I remember the crap that good Liberal Democrats took from Labour for five years.

So I shall take Lord Bonkers' advice and point at Labour and roar with laughter.