Owen Jones: A True Rival to Dr North

Ordinarily it’s bad manners to derive fun from someone’s personal shortcomings, but there is a certain type of in-your-face personality that doesn’t quite seem to require observance of such scruples.  High on the list is Dr Richard North, whom I and several others around these parts have often been unkind about.  We suspect there is a textbook clinical pathology at work here, but until he is finally led quietly away, his own robust rudeness and strident arrogance in the public realm rather disqualifies him from the protection otherwise afforded by good manners.  IMHO.

Bidding strongly for inclusion on this rather short list is Little Owen Jones.  Just as with Dr North, fairly eloquent writing pours forth from his pen (from which, incidentally, he makes a small fortune – another reason he can be left to fend for himself).  The relevant backstory is this.

Little Owen (“his parents met as members of the Militant Tendency“), a well-regarded Grauniad columnist and firebrand lefty author – read BQ’s glowing pen-portrait of his early career – decided back in 2015 to throw in his lot with the apparently foredoomed Corbyn bid for Labour Leadership.  Corbyn’s campaign (subsequently to metamorphosize into the baleful Momentum) quickly took on a life of its own with some clever tech-savvy people at the helm.  One of their wheezes was to award campaign brownie-points to individual registered supporters for activities in furtherance of the mission, e.g. x points for signing up a new supporter, y for raising some money, z for a supportive social-meejah post etc etc.  It was all very competitive, with league-tables and ladders circulated amongst the faithful.   (Almost makes them sound businesslike, doesn’t it?  Like the Boy Scouts; or a squash club … why do we feel it’s all rather middle-class?)

You won’t be surprised to learn that Little Owen proudly came top of this ladder by a country mile.  Well done, Owen!  Oh, how chuffed he must have been.  But then, Something Went Wrong and, rather as Polly Toynbee fell out with Tony Blair and in due course with Gordon Brown, Owen concluded Jeremy was a wrong’un.  Imagine!  Yes, though candidate Corbyn had triumphed with his invaluable assistance, Owen withdrew his precious support and, compounding matters, proceeded to heap ordure onto the useless Labour leader’s head.   Guido has documented all this nicely for us; and it’s worth taking a look, to savour the sheer scale of the betrayal.

But then what happened?  Stone me, if Jezza didn’t do really well in 2017!  Oh dear oh dear, what is poor Owen to do?  With a decent prospect of there being a genuine lefty government in office, a bright young star like him can’t just smoulder on the sidelines – he needs to be right in the middle of things.  Panic sets in, and Operation Grovel is launched, for all to enjoy.  A major contribution to the jollity** of the nation.

It’s another pathology, of course.  Can we decently laugh out loud at such a public spectacle?

Yes, I think we can.

ND

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You can perhaps imagine how carefully I have chosen my words throughout this post …