As embattled Dalston Labour leader Cllr Aneurin Hobsbawm campaigns to be re-elected as leader of his local party, commentators have identified a worrying trend that may point to a weakness in his long-term electoral prospects.
‘There’s no doubt that Mr Hobsbawm is exceptionally popular among Dalston’s grassroots Labour party supporters,’ said Dr Ipsus Morrie, professor of Political Guesswork at the prestigious Dalston University.
‘It is absolutely inarguable that Aneurin is the darling of the Dalston Momentum activists, and that all those committed, clear-eyed, idealistic young people of every conceivable ethnicity on the left of the party adore him, cast flowers on the ground before him, throw underwear during his speeches and want to have his baby. No doubt about that. Non at all.’
‘The problem is, you see,’ continued Dr Morrie, ‘that absolutely everyone else in the borough thinks he’s a right tit.’
‘Even his colleagues on the council,’ she said, ‘In fact, especially his colleagues on the council. All those assassination attempts and bags of dog poo set alight on his doorstep don’t organise themselves, do they?’
Mr Hobsbawm’s activist supporters are estimated to number ‘between seven and nine, depending on what’s on telly’, which will be more than enough to guarantee victory over his leadership rival, an unusually oleaginous cardboard cut-out of Ivor the Engine, which is widely acknowledged to lack charisma, even by the standards of cardboard cut-outs.
By the Mercury’s calculations, however, a support base of ‘between seven and nine’ will be unlikely to secure a Hobsbawm-led Dalston Labour party victory over the Tories.
But then again, we are part of the mainstream media and are so lethally compromised by self-interest, greed, an unbending loyalty to anything wearing a blue rosette, Rupert Murdoch, jelly babies, racism, sexism, fascism and Top Gear that what we write cannot be trusted by anyone, ever.
The Dalston Mercury 