Owen Jones Quotes

Corbyn would inject the substance so disastrously missing from the current contest.

There’s structural inequality, and then there are stitch-ups. The scourge of unpaid internships has helped turn professions (such as my own, the media) into playgrounds for the privileged. Want to become a journalist? You may well find yourself expected to work for free for months, or longer, with no promise of a job at the end of it. If you have parents with the financial means, you have a shot, but otherwise the idea of labouring for nothing in London – one of the world’s most expensive cities – is a non-starter. So is shelling out for an expensive post-graduate qualification, which is increasingly a must. The professions have built walls too high for most to climb, discriminating not on the basis of your talent, but on the basis of your parents’ bank balance.

Men are so accustomed to various privileges – such as automatically being taken more seriously – that they are not even aware they exist. That’s why it is so crucial that men listen to women and their experiences, and learn.

Jones was its foremost advocate and proponent. He was thrilled by Corbyn’s against the odds victory. He predicted and then witnessed at first hand the cruel ferocity of the assault upon Corbyn from within and outside the Labour party and defended him to the hilt. Now he faces the political crisis of a lifetime. The leader whom he defends will lose the battle that matters. What if his staying silent about this means, if only by default, that Owen Jones helps the Tories turn the country into "a jingoistic, foreigner-hating free market colony"?

But how do men speak out about a form of oppression from which they benefit? Take this column. It is inherently problematic. There is no shortage of men offering their opinions on, well, everything.

I wasn't a bit wrong, or slightly wrong, or mostly wrong, but totally wrong. Having one foot in the Labour movement and one in the mainstream media undoubtedly left me more susceptible to their groupthink. Never again. Corbyn stays and – if indeed the Tories are thrown into crisis as Brexit approaches – he has an undoubted chance of becoming prime minister, and a fine prime minister he would make too.

If Corbyn decides he is unable to confront the multiple existential crises enveloping Labour, then an agreement should be struck where he can stand down in exchange for the guarantee of an MP from the new generation on the ballot paper who is committed to the policies that inspired Corbyn's supporters in the first place. It is up to both Corbyn and the parliamentary Labour party. They should both be aware that history is a savage judge.