JEREMY CORBYN'S 'SPIRIT OF 45' versus MARGARET THATCHER'S 'SPIRIT OF 79' - THE CONTEST OF THE 21st CENTURY

And what a contest it is! 'The Spirit of 45' was a team that looked as if it was heading for oblivion. Their belief in socialist values and in the power and strength of communitarianism had attracted fewer and fewer spectators. They found themselves losing bigtime. A new manager had arrived, Tony Blair, and rebranded the team calling it 'The Spirit of 97'. It was a spin doctor's dream. He had taken the name and spirit and ideology of the other big team in town - 'The Spirit of 79' - and tweaked their formation and playing style a bit to include a little of the best from the old 'Spirit of 45' - and then gave the 'Thatcherites', as 'The Spirit of 79' were nicknamed, a drubbing.

'The Spirit of 45' under their manager, Clem Attlee 

Elements within 'The Spirit of 79' were far from alarmed. After all, they were the natural leading team, created to be champions. They might be losing a few battles, a few elections, but the old manager had known a thing or two - what did she say? 'My greatest achievement is 'The Spirit of 97'. She knew that her philosophy as a manager , her commitment to individualist playing styles - to the all-conquering neoliberal approach to the modern game - had been thoroughly absorbed through every pore of the skin of 'The Spirit of 97', the 'Blairites' as they were called.

Sure enough, 'The Spirit of 79' bounced back and in 2010 - under new management and an even more ruthless and refined playing style yet still using the tactics and formation that first saw the light of

JEREMY CORBYN MOVES CLOSER STILL TO BECOMING THE PRIME-MINIISTER - PART 4

I picked up this analysis by Laura Kuenssberg, the BBC senior political editor, a few days ago.

"A lot of people are only just starting to think about the election and they won't have sat through every bit of the TV event last night. What they'll glean, though, from snippets and headlines is a sense of how this campaign has changed, written on the leaders' faces. Jeremy Corbyn, more comfortable, more assured, with better prepared answers. Theresa May, really having to explain herself. And in this last stage the vulnerabilities are exactly where you'd expect. For Mr Corbyn it's on issues like security, his personal views on groups like the IRA. And for Mrs May, it's a Conservative prime minister facing tough questions over public services ..."

Labour Party activists campaigning in Hayle in Cornwall - 29/5/2017 - I can name Kelly, Mick, Dawn, Alana, Keith, Charles and me 

We have come a long way in a month of campaigning. Kuenssberg had been found quite recently to be in breach of BBC neutrality guidelines in her hostile treatment of Jeremy Corbyn. The bias against the man and his values and policies was evident across the media, mirroring the power of an establishment locked into either direct self-interested hatred for socialism or a refusal to acknowledge that this maverick backbencher could ever be taken seriously since to do so would mean tearing up a lifetime of assumptions.

In short, many sections of the media have been guilty of lazy and short-sighted journalism. They have failed to give adequate attention to the exponential rise in the membership of the Labour Party. We are now half-a-million strong. Nor have they had the foresight to credit ordinary people with the

JAGO STONE - THE HELLIDON YEARS - 1971-1986 - PART 2

In Part 2, I continue with more of this extract from my chapter: 'Lifting a Lid on Jago'.

Jenny’s husband, Tony, also remembers Jago and Rowland - and nights in the Red Lion that lengthened into the early hours of the morning.  Rowland was a ‘colourful piece of village life’. Tony agreed immediately with my expressed thought: ‘The country squire?’. ‘Yes! – and he revelled in being so’. ‘Rowland’, Tony continued, ‘divided the people he was thinking about inviting into his social world of parties and drinking into Gin Set Mark 1; Gin Set Mark 2; and Gin
Set Mark 3’. These were the levels in Squire Rowland’s hierarchal trinity of social acceptability.

The English Village - (detail) - Jago Stone (1986)

I was curious about how the squire of Hellidon stood in relation to his responsibilities towards that other foundation of village life, separate from the public house – the village church.  This, after all, was the church run by the Church of England which had its own Trinity and hierarchies.

Rowland, according to Tony, did indeed support the church. He was a generous man and he knew his obligations. He even, occasionally, attended the Sunday service. But being Rowland, the most memorable of these attendances was when he brought with him an African woman whom he had