I'm so glad Jeremy Corbyn has decided to copy Donald Trump's media strategy – what could possibly go wrong?

As Corbyn’s key lieutenants have worked out, those Labour diehards in their industrial heartlands, who’ve voted Labour all their lives, are abandoning the party in their droves because their leader is not attacking the media enough on Twitter

Tom Peck
Monday 09 January 2017 16:32 GMT
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2015 was the year the British people responded to years of Tory-led cuts by re-electing them with a clear majority. 2016 was the year they realised it was all the immigrants’ fault and manifested this wisdom by walking out of the EU. So there’s every reason to suspect that 2017 will be the year they come to realise that – hang on a minute – we’re all revolutionary socialists after all, and it’ll be the Corbyn relaunch that does it.

Everyone knows that Donald Trump is hugely popular in the UK, so Corbyn’s decision to follow in the trail of righteous populism so vividly blazed by a billionaire pussy-grabbing real estate magnate could not be more politically astute.

Inspired by Trump, the Labour leader now plans not to bother rebutting negative stories in the press but instead to use negative media coverage to his advantage to “reinforce the message,” according to an anonymous briefing by a member of his top team.

It doesn’t matter what the media say about Trump: it only takes one angry tweet about “failing CNN” or “failing Vanity Fair” and he’s back on top. If a disabled reporter points out that, no, hundreds of Muslims in New Jersey were not celebrating on 9/11, it simply didn’t happen, you can just do an impression of him convulsing and waving a limp arm in the air and everything’s right again.

As Corbyn’s key lieutenants have worked out, those Labour diehards in their industrial heartlands, who’ve voted Labour all their lives, are abandoning the party in their droves because their leader is not attacking the media enough on Twitter. This is how to win them back.

How frustrated they must be to have only thought of this now. The chances missed. The opportunities wasted.

When Virgin Trains released CCTV footage of Jeremy Corbyn walking past rows of empty seats on his way to and from sitting on the floor and making a video about how “ram-packed” his train was, the party naively kept the story going for several days, not least through John McDonnell calling on Sir Richard Branson to be stripped of his knighthood.

Now they’ll know to just attack the media on Twitter for reporting it. He could even encourage his supporters at a campaign speech to boo the BBC while its political editor is trying to ask a question (ah, no, hang on, that one’s already happened).

Brexit for bankers and corporate world 'not good enough' says Corbyn in New Year's message

So the next time a shadow cabinet reshuffle goes on for six weeks with shadow ministers newly appointed to it resigning even before it’s been completed, or the Labour leaders announces that a terrorist in the middle of a gun rampage shouldn’t be shot by police, or a Jewish MP gets harassed at the launch of an anti-Semitism review, or there’s jam to make and apples to sign, just blame it all on the media and wait for the political earthquake to follow. You could even get a baseball cap.

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