The Johnson-Corbyn Debate

Stories about yesterday's Johnson-Corbyn debate were basically buried in the Western corporate press (page A8 in today's national edition of The New York Times). I assumed this to be an indication that Johnson performed poorly or Corbyn did better than expected. Sure enough, this seems to be the case. As Benjamin Mueller explains,

Mr. Corbyn, who is trying to hold together a coalition that includes both Leavers and Remainers, grew most passionate discussing Britain’s National Health Service.

Brandishing documents that he said described secret government meetings with American trade negotiators, Mr. Corbyn accused Mr. Johnson of wanting to “sell our National Health Service to the United States” during discussions over a post-Brexit free trade agreement.

And he briefly quieted a restive audience by telling the story of a friend who he said had died the day before of breast cancer after waiting eight hours for help.

“The N.H.S. is a wonderful and brilliant institution, but it is suffering under the most incredible pressure,” Mr. Corbyn said, citing thousands of nursing vacancies and long waits in emergency departments.

Labour trails by an average of roughly a dozen percentage points in polls, with Mr. Corbyn garnering the worst popularity ratings of a major party leader heading into a British election since the data was first tracked 40 years ago.

Hopes that Labour could repeat its dramatic comeback in the 2017 general election — perhaps with the rollout of its policy proposals this week — are fading as the party has failed to make up ground.

Post-debate polls showed Johnson winning by 51% to Corbyn's 49%, which has to be considered a win for Labour since it regularly polls in double digits behind the Tories.

I read Niqnaq, which is a blog written in the UK. Niqnaq has been re-posting campaign reporting of the Guardian and the Independent, all of which strikes me as unremittingly negative. Johnson is savaged. Corbyn is savaged equally. So too is Liberal Democratic leader Jo Swinson. It appears to be that the goal of the UK corporate media is to drive down voter participation.

Low turnout no doubt favors the Tories. One thing is for sure. The global zombie neoliberal consensus does not want to see Corbyn win. It would be strong proof that neoliberalism was indeed finished. In terms of foreign policy, a Corbyn win would represent significant challenges for U.S. neoconservative primacy. That's why Pompeo assured "Jewish leaders" the U.S. would block Corbyn.

If Labour, despite the hostility of the corporate press, does manage to muddle through and best the Conservative Party December 12, then one takeaway must be that people have truly stopped paying attention to mainstream media.