Good and bad news for Labour in the 2 contested by-elections
This morning Labour supporters awoke to the news that Labour had held Stoke in the by-election, a safe Labour seat, despite the worry that due to the continued media onslaught against Jeremy Corbyn, including direct attacks by the former leader Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson, that Labour may have been in danger of losing the seat to UKIP's leader, Paul Nuttall.
Labour supporters also awoke to the news that after 80 years of being a Labour seat, Copeland had been lost to the Conservative Party. Much had been made of how Copeland was a marginal seat, in other words, that despite Labour holding the seat for 80 years, it had always been held on a knife edge in terms of the vote. Today the Guardian and other news sources, after calling Copeland a marginal seat, are now saying that it is a safe seat, which of course has never been the truth.
Continued Media Bias against Jeremy Corbyn
The London School of Economics (the LSE) issued a report in the Summer of 2016, outlining the consistent media bias against Jeremy Corbyn by the mainstream media.
They found that 75% of press coverage in the UK misrepresents Jeremy Corbyn, an unprecedented smear campaign against a political figure in the United Kingdom. This unfair representation in the media undoubtedly damages Corbyn and as a result the Labour Party as a whole.
Why such unprecedented attacks by the mainstream media? Could it be that the media barons, such as Murdoch, Rothermere and the Barclay brothers are all non-domicile using offshore tax havens? The very tax havens that Corbyn aims to finish, ushering in an era of fair taxation and lowering the huge gap in wealth equality. Let us not forget that currently, just 8 individuals own more than half of the world's populations wealth. Shocking isn't it?
The Labour Party is a Party of Democratic Socialism
The Labour Party is a Party of Democratic Socialism, it says so plainly on the reverse of our membership cards. The Labour Party with Democratic Socialism as its ideology ushered in a post-war era of social justice. The NHS, Social Security, Social Care, Social Housing, National Parks and Designated Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, footpaths and bridleways and the right to roam, bike or ride a horse in these spaces. At a time when the country was economically on its knees, Clement Attlee's Democratic Socialist Labour Party bought a 10% rise in living standards, each consecutive year that they governed the country.
Tony Blair's neo-liberal policies damaged the Labour Party to the extent where he wiped out Labour's constant and overwhelming support in Scotland, losing us essential seats in Parliament that we may never get back.
There is a huge grassroots movement behind Corbyn. He has trebled the membership in the space of a year, making us the largest political party in Western Europe, and with a membership that dwarfs the membership at the time of Blair's landslide victory in 1997. We will persevere, and we will return Labour to its Democratic Socialist roots.