After Jeremy Corbyn gave his conference speech yesterday, the media-shy Labour leader has undertaken a publicity blitz this morning. While his day got off to an okay start on the Today programme, things quickly went downhill with an appearance on Sky News.
Eamonn Holmes began the interview by heaping praise on Corbyn, likening him to a religious figure. He then decided to focus on football — and Corbyn’s love of Arsenal:
‘Every young lad has a dream of appearing in the FA cup final, and scoring the winning goal, and I was looking at you and the love there was for you in the room, and you were basking in it – was yesterday your FA cup final?’
Corbyn avoided the question, answering with no reference to football. This left Holmes having to ask some questions about politics. After a brief exchange on whether Corbyn hates Tories, Holmes reverted back to his topic of choice:
EH: Look, let’s talk football. Your man’s Arsene Wenger my man’s Alex Ferguson. Do you think they go into a dressing room and they day, listen boys, how are we going to line up tonight, what are we going to do tonight? No they don’t. Fergie always said he had to make it clear, there was one boss. That’s not your way of doing things though.
JC: My way of doing things — because it’s politics, it’s community, it’s people, it’s Government — is actually not the same as managing a football team
EH: Oh it so is – if you want to be a winner, do you want to be a winner?
While Corbynistas have been quick to blast Holmes for patronising Corbyn with questions on football, they ought to give their leader’s conference speech a read. After all, it was none other that Corbyn himself who used a football analogy to rebut negative press about his popularity:
‘Now some media commentators who’ve spent years complaining about how few people have engaged with political parties have sneered at our huge increase in membership.
If they were sports reporters writing about a football team they’d be saying:
“They’ve had a terrible summer. They’ve got 160,000 new fans. Season tickets are sold out. The new supporters are young and optimistic. I don’t know how this club can survive a crisis like this.”’
What was that again about football not being similar to politics?
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