This week, we are apparently supposed to care that the Labour leader allegedly once ate a can of cold beans (Photo: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

Has anybody noticed that those to the right of the political spectrum seem incredibly uneasy about what Jeremy Corbyn and the left are up to?

There is clearly something about addressing the moral disgrace of wealth inequality – which leaves the poor begging for food in wealthy nations whilst the richest enjoy the endless zeros in their bank balances – that leaves the powerful trembling.

The recent attacks on Jeremy Corbyn’s character are proof of this. This week, we are apparently supposed to care that the Labour leader allegedly once ate a can of cold beans.

Such nonsense follows a long list of smears against Corbyn: the ‘scruffy’ raincoat from Marks & Spencer, the weeks of alleging that he was a Soviet spy and the ridiculous manufactured nonsense that he ‘danced’ his way to the cenotaph.




Corbyn is being personally ambushed because he poses a very real threat to a cushy way of life that only benefits a tiny elite.

He’s not alone in facing it. The US Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has faced a similar onslaught in the United States where she has sent those on the right into a state of manic terror.

Though the establishment and the powerful tell us that democratic socialist policies are unpopular and outdated, public opinion says otherwise.

There have been attempts to pick the young congresswoman apart by commenting on her choice of clothing, whilst Republican operators created outright lies about her Green New Deal plan in a desperate attempt to tarnish her reputation.

Given that we are told that the likes of Corbyn, Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez are unrepresentative zealots from a different era, it is somewhat puzzling that their opponents spend so much time and energy on them.

Donald Trump even felt the need to acknowledge the threat of democratic socialist ideology in his recent State of the Union address when he remarked that politicians must ‘renew our resolve that America will never be a socialist country.’

If the politics of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have no chance of winning support across the United States, why would the far-right president feel a need to condemn their ideology in a major national address?

And if Corbyn has no real chance of entering Downing Street, why are wealthy, right-wing owners of some of the British press so keen to target him?

Why, if democratic socialism is so unpopular, would any of this be necessary?

The answer is simple: because they are scared.

Though the establishment and the powerful tell us that democratic socialist policies are unpopular and outdated, public opinion says otherwise.

A recent YouGov poll showed that 74 per cent back the introduction of rent caps, 63 per cent to see workers on boards and 60 per cent want the railways returned to national ownership.

Polling continues to show that the public overwhelmingly back Corbyn’s policies and the same can be said of the situation in the United States.

Though derided by most in the media, Ocasio-Cortez’s plan for taxing incomes over $10 million at 70 per cent was widely supported by voters. One poll even showed that 45 per cent of Republicans were on board.

Gallup polling also recently found that Americans were ‘warming to socialism’, with young people across the United States viewing socialism in a better light than capitalism.



As the chances of a left wing government in the UK grows, the attacks on Jeremy Corbyn will only become more regular and more outlandish.

The same goes for the United States, where Ocasio-Cortez and left-wing contenders for the Democratic nomination for president will come under sustained pressure as they move further to the left.

The hope, for us all, is that in moving further to the left, such candidates are only moving closer to the views of the general public.

For Corbyn and his supporters, like me, it can only be a good thing that the more they attack him, the closer they must believe he is to power.

MORE: Boy bullied for having same surname as Trump falls asleep during State of the Union address

MORE: The UK is becoming more corrupt and our democracy is at stake

MORE: I’m a millennial, left-wing feminist who voted Leave and I’m far from alone