‘The Corbyn Problem’ and the Future of Labour
| Published date | 01 December 2016 |
| DOI | 10.1177/2041905816680411 |
| Date | 01 December 2016 |
| Author | Tim Bale |
4 POLITICAL INSIGHT • DECEMBER 2016
There may be people who, like
Lewis Carroll’s Queen of Hearts,
are able to believe as many as six
impossible things before breakfast.
But there aren’t many psephologists who
believe that, unless the Conservative Party
and the country’s economy implodes over
Brexit, the Labour Party under Jeremy
Corbyn can win the next general election.
It is of course wildly fashionable these
days to decry any form of expertise. It is also
foolish, in a two-horse race, to write o one
of the runners before that race even starts.
But in this case caution may be excessive
rather than advisable.
For a start, those academics know a heck
of a lot more about elections than they
do about referendums, not least because
there have been far more of the former
than the latter. There is also, given the
probable political bias of most academics,
less likelihood that in predicting a Tory
victory they are indulging in wishful
thinking or preference projection than may
have been the case back in June. Also, UK
general elections are no longer a two horse
‘The Corbyn Problem’
and the Future of Labour
Are academics and experts underestimating Jeremy Corbyn? Or does
the Labour leader really have little chance of taking power? Tim Bale
weighs up the possibilities for the party and its figurehead.
race: whereas in 1951 some 97 per cent
of the electorate plumped for either the
Conservative or the Labour Party, by 2015
that proportion had dropped to just 67 per
cent. And anyway, even if there were only
a couple of runners and riders taking part,
it is hard to imagine the horse and jockey
reportedly over ten furlongs (or percentage
points in the polls) behind the front-runner
eventually romping home to victory.
Corbyn Surge
Still, we should pause and pay attention
when one of our number calls us (‘the
political science community’) out on what
he labels our ‘Corbyn problem’ – ‘a collective
sensibility and attitude’ of disdain ‘expressed
both formally (through publications and
© Press Association
Political Insight December 2016.indd 4 31/10/2016 14:28
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