It’s party time for the Marx brothers Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell as Labour leader says he plans to be PM for TEN years at the Labour conference
The Corbynistas are firmly established as a government-in-waiting, says Trevor Kavanagh
DEPRESSINGLY, Jeremy Corbyn says he plans to rule as Prime Minister for ten years once he has led Labour to power.
Ten years! That would make him 83 if the Tories survived until 2022 — about average for Jezza’s Soviet-style heroes who leave office only when they pop their clogs.
But this bleak scenario is all too plausible as Labour stages its triumphant Brighton rally months after Theresa May cut the legs from under her own government.
Today, far from withering under the political spotlight, Mr Corbyn’s motley crew of Trots, Marxists and random revolutionaries is growing in self-confidence and public support.
Nobody who voted Labour for the first time in their lives this summer seems fazed by its extremism, intolerance and incoherence.
The annual conference opened with the razzmatazz of a victory party rather than a third consecutive election defeat.
Membership is booming and cash is flooding in from unlikely sources — including big businesses who stand to lose most from Labour policies.
Troops are braced and ready for an emergency election any time in the next six months.
Only their instinct for self-preservation is saving Tory MPs from imploding in a suicidal split over Brexit — and it still cannot be ruled out.
Jeremy Corbyn can scarcely believe the hand fate has unexpectedly dealt him.
“I’ve waited all my life to see our country transformed and I’m relishing the prospect of government,” he says.
His dream will come true if the Government stumbles over complex Brexit legislation and is defeated in the House of Commons.
In which case, the remorseless Momentum organisation which has pushed this lifelong outsider to the threshold of Downing Street will make sure he stays there.
Jezza is far from the cuddly grandad figure adored by breathless fans warbling: “Oooh, Jeremy Corbyn.”
But nor does he have the brains or the mental agility to cope with leading this nation.
Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell is the iron fist in Jezza’s velvet glove. Without him, Jeremy Corbyn would never have survived his surprise coronation as leader, still less built on it to become unassailable.
In the two years since, the hard Left has cemented its grip on the levers of power inside the Labour Party.
Blairites like Chuka Umunna and Yvette Cooper can mutter all they like, but the moment for mutiny has passed.
They will be dumped under iron-fisted re-selection plans at the earliest opportunity.
The Corbynistas are firmly established as a government-in-waiting.
And what a government it would be.
It would immediately introduce proportional representation, ending first-past-the-post elections and destroying Tory hopes for a generation.
It would raise taxes, boost public spending and borrowing and hand sweeping powers to its trade union paymasters. We would see the Pound crash while unemployment and inflation soared.
Mr Corbyn is a fan of Marxist Venezuela whose corrupt regime has destroyed a once oil-rich economy, inflicting runaway inflation, hunger and mass unemployment with policies just like this.
Millennial voters seduced by Corbyn’s anti-establishment message should ask themselves how a staunch left-wing Corbyn government might respond to real moments of crisis.
How would Jezza deal with Russia’s Vlad Putin or North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un. Or indeed ISIS?
How would new Chancellor John McDonnell handle an inevitable financial crisis?
McDonnell is already threatening to bring back socialist nationalisation without compensation.
So would he help the freewheeling markets which have made Britain the world’s fifth largest economy? Or would he shackle the capitalism he deplores as a system of “greed and profit”?
This self-confessed Marxist celebrated the 2008 crash, saying: “I’ve been waiting for this for a generation. For Christ sake, don’t waste it.”
What he means is, he would put the State in control. The consumer would cease to be king. We would get what we are given.
Overnight, Britain would be at risk of losing its enviable reputation as a financial hub and job-creation capital of the world.
Merkel's price to pay
GERMAN Chancellor Angela Merkel paid dearly yesterday for offering a home to a million Syrian refugees.
She won a record fourth term but saw the new anti-migrant AfD storm into the Bundestag with dozens of seats.
Thanks to her, an alarmingly right-wing party has an official presence in German politics for the first time since the war.
