Fall Out: A Year of Political Mayhem

by Tim Shipman

A belief in the durability of your leader and the sanctity of your cause is not enough to win an election, though. What drove the Corbynistas as the campaign began was not data, strategy or tactics, but a political analysis. It had four strands: a belief that an interventionist state and socialist economics are morally and self-evidently right; the proposition that the 2008 economic crisis had provided an opportunity for their brand of radical-left politics to challenge the prevailing orthodoxies; an understanding that British broadcasting rules meant equal air time for the leader of the opposition during an election campaign, allowing them to avoid the refracting distortions of a partisan press; and a belief that Corbyn could entice people who do not usually vote into the polling booth.