My Week: Jeremy Corbyn* Hugo Rifkind
Last updated at 12:01AM, November 21 2015
Monday
A meeting to discuss the terrorist threat with my three top advisers. Who are a) John McDonnell, b) that guy from The Guardian who thinks everything is Tony Blair’s fault, and c) Andrew, my policy chief, who is suspended from Labour and thus, according to subsection 3.5.1 of the party constitution, only allowed to come to meetings if he keeps a bin on his head.
“Shoot to kill,” says the Guardian guy. “Obviously we’re against it. But why? Anybody?”
“Bwah-bomby-bah-dubbabadum?” says the policy guy, faintly, inside his bin.
John says he thinks he’s asking whether Tony Blair has expressed a view.
“No,” says the Guardian guy. “The selfish git.”
Listen, I say. This is easy. Of course we don’t want policemen to shoot terrorist suspects. Rather, we want them to express a fervent comprehension of the alienation felt by an unrepresentative subsection of coincidentally Muslim youth by the oppressive neoliberal Zionist hegemony.
“But quite quickly,” says John.
“And from distant rooftops,” says the Guardian guy.
“Exactly,” I say.
Tuesday
Last night we had a meeting of the parliamentary Labour party. It went very badly. A huge assortment of moderates and Blairites banded together to say I was weak on terror.
OK fine, I say. Enough of this. Let’s just shoot them.
“Finally!” says my policy guy, wrenching off his bin.
I mean the terrorists, I clarify.
“Oh,” says my policy guy, and puts it back on again.
Wednesday
Keen to show how safe and trustworthy I am on all things terror and military related, I have appointed Ken Livingstone as co-convenor of Labour’s defence review. And I don’t even drink.
Unfortunately, there are calls for him to resign by lunchtime, after my shadow defence minister says it’s a bad appointment, and Ken says he must be depressed and need medical help, and it turns out he was, and did.
“I’m from South London,” says Ken. “We retaliate.”
“I’m from North London,” I say, “and we don’t.”
“But you’re just a weird old man in sandals,” says Ken.
“I respect your position on this,” I say.
Thursday
It’s a bad day. John McDonnell is under attack for signing a letter saying we should disarm the police and disband MI5.
“Rubbish,” says John. “Never happened.”
“But there’s a photograph of you holding it,” says the Guardian guy. Then he says the policy guy signed it, too, but the policy guy doesn’t say anything. Maybe he can’t hear us. Maybe somebody else is under the bin, and he’s taken the day off. There’s no knowing.
Also, the party is in revolt about my policy on Syria.
“Although on the plus side,” says the Guardian guy, “at least they think you’ve got one.”
Friday
I do have a policy on Syria. I am in favour of a political settlement. And I am firmly against bombing without UN approval. And, if there is UN approval, my slightly more secret policy is to simply cough every time anybody asks me about it.
And so, today, I am holding an emergency meeting with senior Labour MPs, in order to spell this out.
“We shall fight them in the sub-committees,” I tell them. “We shall fight them in the round-table discussion forums brokered by neutral third parties. We shall fight them in the minuted, ad-hoc panels of interested regional parties. And we shall never, ever, surrender.”
There is an unexpected dearth of cheering.
“But what happens,” says Hilary Benn, “if the UN authorises military strikes?”
“Cough?” I say.
“Get him a lozenge!” shouts John Mann.
“He’s going to be sick!” shouts Yvette Cooper.
“Give him your bin!” shouts Andy Burnham.
*According to Hugo Rifkind