Jeremy Corbyn & The Battle For The British Labour

(U.S. 'Labor') Party Leadership

I had taken up a long-standing invitation to visit ********* at his beautiful quaint home – **** Manor – in Cambridge.

I decided to let the train take the strain as we were intending to get some pub grub and pork belly at one of his favorite local dens.

It was a very beautiful Summer's day.

He collected me from the station and we spent the sweltering morning walking the lengths of his inner courtyard and gardens while he gave a few tips on elementary botany for the layman and introduced me to his treasured plants and flowers, each by nomenclature.

As we strolled through the gardens I recalled a similar residence in Malta I had, many years ago, been invited to lunch at. The one in Malta was likewise breathtaking and I remember that the proprietor of the property told us that Her Majesty The Queen had actually stayed at this residence when she once visited the island. I cannot recall whether it was a stay for a few days or just a visit to the property to marvel at it's equally beautiful gardens.

(What I can now say is that our visit to Malta was hosted by Frank Salt Properties and this is the first opportunity I am taking to say thank you to Frank and his Staff for being such wonderful hosts, providing the warmest of hospitality and personal guides during our stay on the island.)

The setting for ****** residence in Cambridge could not have been more perfect.

For many years ******* had been trying to persuade me to move to Cambridge on the grounds that there are a better intellect class in residence here (and maybe one more to my liking?) than 'the jungle' where I was residing. He even had somewhere in mind for me to reside.

Sadly when you get too used to 'jungle life' it's very difficult to adapt to 'normality' and I think I would have ultimately found myself infinitely bored in the beautiful picturesque settings I was now enjoying (!)

Over lunch we discussed politics and some issues which did not appear in two of my books nor interviews but were nonetheless very topical.

After that we drove to see his primary and secondary schools, all hallowed, oaked and silent in the blistering heat of a very lazy day, with not a soul in sight just a few lovers strolling by the banks of the glistening and sparkling undulating waters.

I am not one of the world's greatest botanists but I think they were willow trees lightly dipping their boughs into the slow-flowing streams, hardly a gust in sight.

I will not give the exact circumstances nor location where I met Jeremy Corbyn just suffice to say that he had just come from seeing his son, then a Cambridge undergraduate. (His son graduated about two years ago.)

We spend the better part of an hour - just us - nobody else – chatting about everything.

Out of respect, I did not draw him into a discussion about any major political issues but we talked a lot about education in general and the (then) topical issue of climate change, the ongoing drought in Cambridge and it's effects on local farming.

This was not my first encounter with Mr Corbyn. Many years ago - perhaps as many as ten - I was debating with the same on BBC World Television about terrorism in the Philippines.

As I recall there was a third person partaking that BBC Panel debate.

I never agreed with Mr Corbyn's politics - which I am familiar with over many years - but at least he stands for something he believes in.

There are very few (perhaps a handful) of British politicians who are but 'party lackeys' - and all his rival contenders for the Labor Party leadership fit into this bag - with lots of room to spare for many many more of them.

They are all so dull and so predictable - the Socialist 'Nomenklatura' 'Class' in British Politics.

Jeremy Corbyn is the Socialist equivalent of Margaret Thatcher (and I did meet Margaret on many occasions.)

He is feared by the Labor Party nomenklatura because he actually stands for 'genuine' Socialist values – as opposed to their sham and deceitful politics - all carefully managed to fool the general public into believing that they represent 'the ordinary' folk.

I would not vote for Jeremy - but I respect the fact that he actually has something he treasures and genuinely believes in contrast to the 'Judases' now desperately seeking any and every nefarious and perfidious means to scuttle his bid for the Party's leadership.

In one sense he represents the political antithesis of Margaret Thatcher but in another he likewise shares her 'conviction politics' and is motivated toward a grander (utopian?) vision of mankind's existence, under a (rainbow) socialist umbrella.

Perhaps that is what British politics desperately needs - a real genuine alternative so that people can at least have a real genuine choice to vote on at a general election.

The campaign against Mr Corbyn has almost reached hysterical levels - with the end of the world being predicted if he is elected Labor Leader.

They have even dusted down the ghosts (and literally, guns) of old, rehabilitated Mr Blair and put him in the sparring ring to add the 'coup de grâce' as Corbyn lies pummelled and bleeding on the ropes from the blows and the knife wounds inflicted by Brutus et al.

It's unlikely that he will succeed in his bid for leadership of the British Labor Party as every political 'hitman' (or 'hitperson' as the politically correct Socialists would prefer to say) from the four corners of the British Isles has been press-ganged into service to 'get Corbyn' at any and at all costs.

As all those plotters against Corbyn, without exception, 'lie with dogs' (as the saying goes) I have no doubt they will all, ultimately, 'get up with fleas' (!)

©Patrick Emek, July 24th, 2015