Can I finish?

“Stop, stop he’s already dead!” If the Simpsons inspired meme was made for anything, it was for Andrew Neil’s evisceration of Jeremy Corbyn last night. Labour spin doctors looking for something to clip out on social media have literally nothing to work with and have been forced today to adopt the “dead cat” strategy by revealing 450 pages of unredacted documents on post-Brexit trade and the NHS. It might just do the trick, but it will be difficult to erase the memory of last night.

The contrast to the ITV debate was stark. There Corbyn had space to speak confidently to an audience with little interruption, a breeze for a man at home on a soap box. The format suited him, and he was able to respond to most audience questions with pre-planned responses and his pleasant demeanour remained unchanged. When pressed by journalists in the past, it has tended to slip.

His impatience for scrutiny and petulant nature was exposed again last night.

If there was a Jeremy Corbyn pull-string doll it would have a contorted face and crabbily say, “can I finish?!”. It’s become something of a catchphrase which comes out every time he faces tough questioning and hints at how temperamentally ill-suited he is for the job of Prime Minister.  Every time Neil interrupted Corbyn to try to prevent him trying to veer away onto more comfortable ground rather than giving a straight answer, he responded – can I finish? Can I finish? Can I finish? All it did was emphasise how unconvincing his responses were on almost every subject covered. There were no positives to take from the thirty minutes.

He was dreadful and unconvincing on antisemitism where he attempted to deflect the questions with his shield of self-righteousness, which has served him so well throughout his life. His stubborn refusal to apologise for the Labour Party’s mishandling of the issue will surely lead some to wonder whether he refuses to apologise simply because he is not sorry.

He pointedly disagreed with the Chief Rabbi and insisted that it was “not right” to say it was “mendacious fiction” that Labour had investigated every single case of anti-Semitism. This is despite the clear evidence to the contrary. He was once again visibly irritated at having anyone question his anti-racist reputation, seeming to think it enough to defend himself with platitudinous statements you might see in a clichéd personal statement for a job application. Corbyn insisted that opposing racism is “what my life is about” and that he felt “very passionately” about this, as if this was a credible response about the abject failure of his Party and his own personal failures on antisemitism.

Corbyn still clearly resents his accusers and believes himself to be morally beyond reproach. It’s really quite astonishing. A large proportion of the Jewish community have expressed that the prospect of a Labour government makes them feel unsafe, his Party is being investigated by the EHRC, whistle blowers have spoken out against the racism they experienced and here Corbyn seemed more determined than ever to effectively say they’re wrong.

Earlier in the day, on Tuesday, Corbyn had launched his party’s “race and faith manifesto” alongside three candidates that showed exactly how much Corbyn cares about antisemitism. Afzal Khan, a shadow Immigration Minister, who shared Facebook posts about “mass murdering Rothschilds Israeli mafia criminal liars”. Claudia Webbe who defended Ken Livingstone after he compared a Jewish journalist to a concentration camp guard. Apsana Begum who shared a Facebook post claiming that the Saudis were “inspired by their Zionist masters”. It’s no wonder Corbyn wilted under Neil’s questioning, he has no defence.

As the interview went on, all the chickens came home to roost. His absurd position on Brexit which is obviously designed to conceal his lifelong Euroscepticism left him floundering. What kind of a leader is unwilling to champion either the new Brexit deal he negotiated or the alternative, which is remaining in the EU? He has put himself in an absurd position were he will be remaining silent during the most important national debate in the country during a second referendum.

Neil: “What would you do during the referendum campaign? Would you go on holiday?”

Corbyn: “No, I’d be running the government. There are many other – there are many other…”

Neil: “You wouldn’t take part in the referendum campaign?”

Corbyn: “There are many other things to run as well as that.”

Cue tetchy Corbyn: can I finish, can I finish, can I finish? What, finish your highly unconvincing explanation? By all means, but it doesn’t make your position on Brexit any more justifiable.

When it came to policy, Corbyn squirmed as he was asked to explain and defend his party’s ludicrous manifesto of bribes, fantasies and eye watering spending pledges. Neil masterfully exposed the obvious lie that only those earning more than £80,000 per annum would be taxed more to pay for Labour’s gargantuan public spending and nationalisation programme. He had no answer to the example Neil gave of a couple with a modest retirement income of £14,000 a year who would pay £400 because of Labour’s proposed tax on share ownership.

It was never believable that the £82 billion Labour admits to needing to raise from taxation to pay for its policies would come solely from the top 5% of taxpayers. It was remarkable that a candidate for PM couldn’t tell Neil what proportion of income tax the 5% pays (50%). His insistence that they would only have to pay “a little more” was wholly unconvincing, it would need to be a lot more. When it was put to him that many wealthy taxpayers would leave the country, Corbyn just said he didn’t see why. He believes he can create a socialist country and squeeze the rich until the pips squeak to pay for it and reality won’t convince him otherwise.

The biggest blow to Labour’s economic credibility came from Corbyn’s inexcusable inability to explain how it would fund its shameless £58 billion bribe to compensate women hit by changes to the state pension age. He repeatedly dodged questions about how it would be paid for and repeatedly tried to explain why instead. It is a “moral debt that’s owed to those women” apparently, but viewers are still none the wiser where the money is coming from. “We will do it by paying for it from government reserves and if necessary, because it’s not all going to be paid in one year, we will have to borrow in the long term,” Corbyn eventually explained before having to admit the government didn’t have the money in reserves and would have to borrow it.

Antisemitism has come back to haunt Corbyn and Labour again this week and it was probably the worst part of the interview for the party. However, it is unclear how it will impact on the polls as many voters may already have been aware of the issue. The biggest blows last night came from Corbyn floundering when questioned on his policies. There was a reason Paul Johnson of the IFS looked so shell shocked in response to Labour’s manifesto, last week. It is a grossly irresponsible attempt to bribe as many different susceptible groups of voters as possible that doesn’t even attempt to be economically credible.

The sustained pressure in this campaign has pierced the image of Corbyn as the Mr Nice guy type, the “magic grandpa” as he was once again exposed as petty, defensive and tetchy with a clear hatred of scrutiny.  The chickens came home to roost because Corbyn is temperamentally ill-suited to the job of Prime Minister, because he is a better grievance-peddling protestor than a leader and he’s standing on a socialist manifesto chock full of bribes and pipe dreams. The Corbyn who aced the 2017 election and surprised us all was not on show here.

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