The Silly Season has been part of British Culture for years. It’s that time of year (i.e. the summer holidays) covering the gap between the recess of Parliament and the start of the political party conferences when newspapers and broadcast media resort to frivolous stories to fill airtime, paper and nowadays, websites.
This year’s Silly Season started off with calls for “Cull the Gulls” in response to aggressive sea gulls but soon the media found itself struggling to cope with Big Stories including the plight of migrants in Calais and, who’d have imagined it, Corbynmania.
If you’re reading this on Mars you might not realise that after the May elections Labour’s leader Ed Milliband stood down and an election to find a new leader was announced. A rank outsider, Jeremy Corbyn managed to get himself nominated and has sparked fury & excitement in equal measure! The general public seem to love Jeremy and it looks like he might become the party’s next leader.
My friend Peter Mortimer managed to bag a ticket to a Corbyn rally in central Newcastle on Tuesday evening. The 1200 free tickets went like hot cakes and a rally outside the event attracted about 600 others. Corbyn’s whipping up more frenzy than a teen pop idol!
I mentioned that Peter was going to Jeremy’s “gig” to the young waitress in the cafe where we enjoyed a chat about poetry and, inevitably politics ahead of the rally. The waitress smiled and said “Ooh say hello from me!”
Corbyn connects with thousands of young people (ie the future of this country) in a way no other politician does. I’m fascinated by this election run and look forward to devouring online, paper and broadcast reporting as we near the climax in less than a month.
Pete wrote down his thoughts on the rally for Newcastle’s Journal. Please read.
http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/news-opinion/jeremy-corbyn-become-symbol-hope-9887042
