‘What would happen if somebody ever came to power that you actually agreed with?’ It’s not a question that troubles most people, but spare a thought for the left-wing satirist who is used to lacerating Tory, Labour and coalition governments with equal ferocity. Yet while I am sometimes asked this question, any party – in government or in opposition – has been so far from representing my own views that it has always remained largely hypothetical. Until now. How on earth can I attack Jeremy Corbyn when I find myself agreeing with most of what he says?
After all, political cartooning is an offensive, attacking medium. Or it is nothing. The prospect of a ‘positive’ political cartoon is nauseating, for the practitioner as much as for the viewer. So, having wrestled long and hard with this dilemma, I’ve tried drawing Corbyn in various increasingly absurd guises instead. These depictions range from Mr Tod – inspired by a quote from Michael White’s response to Corbyn’s first leader’s conference speech (“Karl Marx meets Beatrix Potter”) – through to Mona Lisa and Popeye (or to be precise, Popeye’s Dad Poopdeck Pappy). And I have finally come to the conclusion that, while it’s not my job to attack someone for doing or saying things I agree with, there is no harm in depicting him as a kind of shambling, hapless Messiah. His initials, at least, prove helpful here. Obviously I don’t see him as being as malignant as many of my colleagues do, but that’s their problem, not mine.
Corbyn’s appearance certainly makes for an easy caricature. In this, if nothing else, he follows in the footsteps of Margaret Thatcher, who, with her staring left eye and hooded right eye, was a cartoonist’s dream. Corbyn is too: his mad right eye and scowly left eye makes him look like an angry old git. This seems to be how the bulk of the charmless and largely masculine circle of British political cartoonists depicts the leader of the Labour party. Writing as another bearded old git at the wrong end of his seventh decade, I feel entirely justified in depicting him in that way without risking any charge of ageism. Where I diverge from my colleagues, at least in the mainstream press, is in my attitude to his politics. That’s why I try not to draw him in a Lenin cap with a red star on it. Corbyn may be many things, but he’s not a Leninist. This reality doesn’t stop some of Corbyn’s critics from denouncing Corbyn as a tool of the Kremlin. The former head of MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove, made no bones about attacking Corbyn as a security risk on the day of last year’s snap election. In the end, of course, this criticism backfired badly and Corbyn’s Labour party surpassed all expectations at Theresa May’s expense.What Jeremy Corbyn did was to successfully challenge the comfortable consensus on the economy, while wisely keeping his party’s powder dry and its options open on the divisive idiocies of Brexit. Despite the hysterical and increasingly panicked manoeuvrings of sections of his own party, he has pursued a coherent, consistent and surprisingly polite argument against a policy of savage austerity and has thereby reset the debate on his own terms.
Nobody else would have dared do this, especially not with such apparently fatal disadvantages, ranging from his subversive record and his natural scowl to his blatant lack of charisma, oratorical clout or ministerial experience. Austerity as a policy is now, officially, over. However, the carnage wrought by it on the poorest members of our society is something that no future government will be able to dismiss or ignore. It’s for this reason I want Corbyn to come to power – even if it makes my job as a political cartoonist that bit harder.
Steve Bell is the Guardian’s cartoonist. His book Corbyn: The Resurrection is out now
Comments