Tony Benn remarked that were two kinds of politicians signposts and weathervanes.

Signposts indicate the way ahead, resolute and unchanging in the face of criticism or challenge. Weathervanes spin on their axis, responding swiftly and unthinkingly to changes in the prevailing wind.

One is the politics of conviction – built on principle and a hard earned understanding of how things are for ordinary people and seeks to help. The other is the politics of opportunism that seeks only the easiest corridor to power for its own sake.

Unwittingly the Labour Party has given us the choice about which kind of politics we want – its clear from the overwhelming lead that Jeremy Corbyn has in the Labour leadership election that we want the politics of conviction and that few believe his rivals offer that.

Labour never intended to give us this choice. A last minute nominee, put forward because he was reluctantly willing to stand while others were not – Corbyn was only supposed to lend the election of another careerist right of centre politico some credibility – but boy has it backfired for Labour’s panicked leadership.

“There go my people, I must find out where they are going so I can lead them.”

that quote attributed to Alexandre Auguste Ledru-Rollin could easily be from any of Corbyn’s rivals, lost in focus groups and hollow PR media spin, they are three becalmed boats without any guiding stars of principle.

For Burnham, Cooper and Kendal the quote should read:

“There go the corporate media and the wealthy – I must find out where they are going so I can follow them”

Since Tony Blair arrived – Labour has not fought for a better society based on morals and principles – it has instead constantly repositioned itself around the prevailing winds, hoping that acquiescence to the status quo would win and retain power.

If Labour needed a signpost for how bankrupt this process is, they need only look at the oligarch owned media that they are so eager to please – the corporate press fights 24/7 to shape the political debate in a way that suits their agenda – they do this because they know that you have to fight for your principles and the sort of society you want.

Labour has become a party of opposition in name only. By becoming such an anaemic and supine political non-entity, democracy itself has been weakened to the point where most voters don’t even care anymore – but all that CAN change.

The scenes in meeting halls and on social media over the last few weeks have been extraordinary, the crowds and the support speak volumes – I haven’t seen such a buzz around British politics in my lifetime.

Two main reasons power this outpouring of excitement:

(1) In Jeremy Corbyn people recognise a politician of conviction who will actually fight on their behalf for things they want.

(2) People have a faint whiff of democracy again – and they like it.

The voter has been excluded from politics for decades, democracy reduced to a closed shop. The corporate media defines the boundaries of acceptable debate and two virtually identical groups of career politicians insist that their deathly neoliberal consensus represents the only ‘credible’ choices.

By giving Jeremy Corbyn a platform, Labour has pulled a brick from the wall that corporate power has built around Westminster and provided hope that we the ordinary voters might pull it down as surely as the Berlin Wall.

The reaction of the corporate media and their political apologists has been predictably hysterical – insisting that the wall must stand, that we have no choice, that we must return at once to the hopeless neoliberal political stagnation that serves only the wealthy few.

We must stand up to the barrage of propaganda and fear-mongering that has and will continue to be pumped out by vested interests in the media – for it is not our interests or those of society that they care about – but theirs.

But the cat is out of the bag – political change is this country need not always serve the wealthy – debate need not be a fait accompli, we can have a say and we can be heard.

As an oft maligned politician of principle once said:

“…if you ask me about those insoluble economic problems that may arise if the top is deprived of their initiative, I would answer ‘To hell with them.’ The top is greedy and mean and will always find a way to take care of themselves. They always do.”

Its time to reboot democracy in Britain.

Lets get Jeremy Corbyn elected whatever the usual suspects say…

…and then lets make sure we are never excluded from politics again – Corbyn can’t do it all for us.

So much rests on us re-engaging with the fight for a just and sustainable future.

See also: Sodium Haze on Facebook