Terror at the end of May

The horrific deaths and injuries resulting from the bombing in a Manchester pop venue are ultimately the consequence of vile old men who are fearful and jealous of their marginality and who are thrilled by their power to groom the very youth that they send to their grisly deaths.

The West's (and now Russia's) incessant and utterly ineffective military interventions in the predominantly Muslim world provide the fuel, day after day, of the death cults erupting at the margins of Islam.

The West's 'war on terror' has failed and simply reproduces over and over, the very conditions that fertilise the reactionary madness that ends in mutual destruction and misery.

All these elements are in play in the Manchester bombings. At last, a major, mainstream, western political leader has said it.

Corbyn, Britain's Labour leader, made his cautious and careful speech (May 26) at a moment when Labour edged to just 5 points below the Tory Party in a YouGov poll. The poll scored 38% for Labour with 43% for the Tories. Labour started the snap election campaign 20 points below the Tories. The days of the Manchester bombing and endless media speculation about security coupled with endless solemn statements from 'the Prime Minister' (who is not even an MP after Parliament is dissolved at the time of an election) have not altered a trend that started after the launch of the Tory Manifesto. The Tory Manifesto put a new social welfare tax at the heart of its increasing austerity. Called a 'death tax' it defines old age welfare as a private and not a social right, and leaves millions of the young without any chance of their own housing.

Teresa May needs a big majority of Tory MPs to allow her carte blanche in the coming Brexit storm. Besides increased austerity including the death tax and cuts to state pensions, all designed to 'free up' government financial responsibilities, May needs to drive the politics of Brexit equally as unhampered by tricky objections creating new voting blocs in Parliament. That is why the Tory election has been dominated by the projection of the politically pirouetting May as her opposite, apparently being both 'strong and stable.'

This was the context in which most Tories assumed that May's invisible leadership qualities would shine as a result of the Manchester tragedy. But the polls seem to say that the voters are less beguiled. It is a different matter however, as to whether Corbyn's speech will consolidate an alternative view among millions in society, as the mainstream media and most of the establishment start their patriotic blitz. The memory of the Iraq war debacle remains deep. And that is a solid platform for a significant shift. The coming days will demonstrate whether the British establishment has still failed to rebuild its grip over popular reluctance to carry on 'the war against terror.'

And in her own way May will begin to feel her own fright at the increasing possibility of her presiding over the weak and unstable politics to come.