Peter Oborne is a journalist and a self-confessed tory voter. He, nevertheless, sees the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, very differently from the rest of the herd and has this to say:
"As a Tory, I don't share many of Corbyn's political beliefs, but I am certain that most of what is written about the Labour leader is false...
...Unlike Tony Blair, Corbyn has to do it the hard way. He has achieved his triumph in the face of hostility from a deeply unfair and partisan British media, much of which is openly determined to destroy him and distort his actions."
"Mr Corbyn is dragging Labour back in touch with its rank-and-file voters for the first time in almost a quarter of a century. As a party leader who reaches decisions not through calculation but through principle, he puts to shame the lies and spin of the New Labour era"
"There was an unspoken agreement between Tories and Labour that they would only work within very constrained parameters. The Cameron Conservative Party and the Blairite Labour Party both advocated near identical spending and taxation targets. They both supported the marketisation of the public sector. They both agreed the same neoliberal economic model."
"For two decades both main parties have shared the same verities about British foreign policy. They have regarded Britain as automatically subservient to the United States. This in turn has meant that we have interpreted the partnership with the Gulf dictatorships - such as Saudi Arabia and UAE - as central to Britain’s Middle East focus, while taking the side of the Israeli state against the Palestinians.
No matter which party was technically in power, British foreign policy has remained unchanged. David Cameron is indistinguishable in foreign policy terms to Tony Blair. (Indeed, the former prime minister has become one of Mr Cameron’s most valued foreign policy advisors.)
Jeremy Corbyn would smash this consensus...
...Let’s now examine Jeremy Corbyn’s own record. He opposed the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He argued for talks with the IRA long before this became official policy. He has been ridiculed for talking to Hamas and Hezbollah. By one of the deeper ironies of modern history Tony Blair is now (as Middle East Eye recently revealed) in discussion with Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, in which enterprise he has the backing of David Cameron.
Most people would agree that on the most intractable foreign policy issues of our time Corbyn has tended to be right and the British establishment has tended to be wrong. What Corbyn does or thinks today is likely to be vindicated a few years later. Hard though it is for the British establishment to stomach, Corbyn’s foreign policy ideas have generally been more balanced and far-sighted than those of his opponents...
...Corbyn is our only current hope of any serious challenge to a failed orthodoxy. Blair and Cameron have both adopted a foreign policy based on subservience rather than partnership with the United States [a position now taken by May], which has done grave damage to British interests."
http://www.middleeasteye.net/…/according-british-media-clas…
https://www.google.co.uk/…/PETER-OBORNE-Corbyn-hero-democra…
http://www.middleeasteye.net/…/corbyn-troublemaker-15324840…
In summary, Mr Oborne puts it this way:
Tom