There's a wonderful opinion piece on the Guardian today that's a rather cutting critique of recent days/weeks/months
Mitford and Ross found the middle classes rather prissily given to euphemism while the aristocracy declined to draw a doily over things. False teeth were U, dentures were non-U. Dying was U, passing on was non-U. New and non-New politics is much the same. The ghastly non-New lot will murmur squeamishly of “disagreements about facts”, whereas one has to be New to know that the smart thing to scream is: “Smear!” There really is nothing more non-New than finicky little gradations, from far right to centre right through centre left and so on. This sort of thing is literally as unforgivable as saying serviette instead of napkin. All of the aforementioned people are Tory scum. They belong to whichever “establishment” is at the top of the tree this week – the banker one, the immigrant one or the English one. There is us, and there is them. Just as some sharks must always be swimming forward, so the New politics must be constantly excluding.
Classifying in order to exclude can be almost a full-time job. A single tweet expressing admiration or distaste for something or other requires a New politics operative to seek it out, insert themselves into the conversation, and explain that either or both parties have been classified as “liberal scum”. The classification is terminal. (Liberal now means Tory, FYI. It’s the toilet of the New politics, in a Mitfordian sense; and, apparently, a literal one.)
What the New politics needs is a Peter York figure who can bring out a tenuously ironic Official New Politics Handbook, modelled after its Sloane Ranger ancestor. That earlier work identified one characteristic of the Sloane tribe as an innate confidence allied to a blithe anti-intellectualism. The New politics, as framed by its loudest and most bullishly irrational voices, must be viewed as that strain’s latest incarnation.
As far as charting the history of our rapidly calcifying political tribalism goes, there will be some debate about the first New politics moment of the modern era. But for my money it is George Dubya Bush’s 2001 decree that “You’re either with us or against us,” which cleverly trumpeted the death of nuance, and ushered in 14 years and counting of rolling examples as to why Manichaeism is always the right answer.
f all the non-New things these days, meanwhile, I see more and more evidence that jokes are very much up there. Indeed, a “joke” is another of those horribly déclassé euphemisms for a smear. The decidedly non-New Private Eye editor, Ian Hislop, observes to Press Gazette this week: “There are a lot of people who’ve discovered politics recently but haven’t got the idea that – in the world of politics – it’s possible for the opposition A) to have a point and B) to offer criticism. So a lot of Ukippers cancelled their subscriptions earlier in the year because they thought the jokes about Ukip were not funny and not fair. This was followed by a very similar vein of Scots Nats saying: ‘These jokes aren’t funny, and they’re not fair.’ And I think we’re about to get the Corbynistas, that’ll be the next wave saying: ‘You’ve no idea what you’re talking about.’ A different sort of politics has just arrived – whether it’s Farage or Sturgeon or Corbyn. And any criticism – and certainly any jokes – are not welcome.”
As an actual opinion on Laga's question.
It's not if you view it as Left Wing Candiates 59%< RightWing/Mainstream Candidates 41% - which is a far more telling result than looking at the candidates individually.
It belies the fractured nature of the "selectorate" (eurgh hate that term, but haven't seen one better) - and remember the membership was even closer- and the challenge facing Corbyn to convince enough people to follow him in ways "Overwhelming" doesn't.
Especially for the more obsessed ones (and god I've got to stop reading Guardian reader comments. They might kill me) that view this as the moment the 'fight back' started (or in some instances...was won)
Hence lots of commentators/news sites use it it fits both their narrative and what they want to be reality, rather than having to be more rational about the extremely precarious position Corbyn finds himself in.
That's pretty overwhelming as leadership elections go.
Maybe for the Labor Party (It was 51 Left(ish) and 49 (mainstream) in 2010 IIRC?) but Cameron got 68%* and he's a complete joke;)
(*In the third round but the jokey comment doesn't work if we deal with the nature of the figure properly so in the spirit of something akin to Stockholm Syndrom I've decided to just run with it )