#marvinrees

One year on from the 2015 general election and I can still remember the abject despair and frustration I felt at learning we had elected a majority Conservative government.  Despite receiving more votes in 2015 than they did five years prior (quite amazing when you consider all the votes they lost in Scotland), the media narrative was that it was Labour’s worst defeat in a generation.  Ed Milliband resigned and no one knew what would happen next.  Then, in September, many Labour supporters and the left wing as a whole received a well need injection of hope when Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader of the party. 

Let’s just take a moment to remind ourselves of those figures.  Corbyn was elected with the biggest mandate EVER of any Labour leader.  He received 59.5% of first preference votes and would have won even without the support of the dreaded “£3 registered supporter” votes.  He earned votes from just under 50% of full party members and well over 50% of affiliated members.  Since his election, Labour has seen their party membership sky-rocket!

The way the media and even some Labour MPs talk about Corbyn it’s as if he’s an imposter, as if he cheated his way into the job and we need to keep reminding ourselves that is simply not true. 

Many media outlets were calling this weekend’s local elections and mayoral elections a test for Corbyn.  Well, if they were then he passed with flying colours.  While sceptics were predicting losses into the hundreds, in England Labour lost only 18 seats (at the time of writing, with results from 123 councils) whilst the Tories lost 47, with the Lib Dems and UKIP making gains.

(source: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/local-election-results-2016-your-7907123)

This could hardly be called a catastrophe for Labour.  What’s more, Labour candidates won all four mayoral contests, with particularly impressive results for Sadiq Kahn in London and Marvin Rees in Bristol.  Here in Bristol, Tory candidate Charles Lucas circulated leaflets warning voters of “Corbyn’s man in city hall” (never once using Rees’ name!) who would experiment with Corbyn’s “dangerous, radical” policies.  It seems Bristolians - myself among them - either didn’t care or quote fancy a spot of radicalism.

And let’s be clear, Kahn and Rees’ victories are their own.  It was their name on the ballot paper and they won because they were the best candidates for the job.  To say this is Corbyn’s victory is just as untrue and unfair as it would be to blame him for their loss but it’s worth bearing in mind that voters were sold anti-Corbyn messages by the Tory campaign - the candidates links to Corbyn exaggerated - and voters still elected them in huge numbers.  It would appear Corbyn’s association isn’t as toxic as the Tories would like to think it is.  Whether this can transfer into Labour votes in 2020 remains to be seen but having Labour figures in such high profile positions doesn’t do any harm.

So all in all, it looks rather positive doesn’t it.  Doesn’t it?  Well here’s the front page of the BBC news website this morning (Sunday 8th May)

A quote from Kahn’s article in the Guardian is placed centre stage, a barely-concealed dig at Corbyn, while the bar chart above seems to suggest Labour’s reach is fairly broad already. 

The BBC’s ‘key points’ also manage to paint a negative view of Labour’s success and contain no criticism of the Tories whatsoever, a tactic they have stuck to throughout the mayoral contest, reporting heavily on the accusations of anti-Semitism within Labour and virtually no air time to Zac Goldsmith’s poisonous, racist campaign of fear and division.