:00:00. > :00:00.only be their third win in the Premier League so far.
:00:00. > :00:00.and we'll have much more in Sportsday at half-six.
:00:00. > :00:18.W Stephen Gilbert is a writer and journalist.
:00:19. > :00:21.He used to be a television producers of drama and documentaries,
:00:22. > :00:24.a job he alternated with writing about television, and he wrote an
:00:25. > :00:26.admired biography of the television playwright Dennis Potter.
:00:27. > :00:28.Now he has written a book about Jeremy Corbyn.
:00:29. > :00:30.More of a political pamphlet really, it is subtitled Accidental Hero,
:00:31. > :00:33.and it's a brief introduction to the man who came from relative
:00:34. > :00:36.obscurity to become the most controversial leader of the Labour
:00:37. > :00:54.Stephen Gilbert, why do we need a book like this about Jeremy Corbyn?
:00:55. > :01:03.I mean, many people don't understand where he can have come from, to be
:01:04. > :01:10.A lot people, perhaps most people, would not have heard of him
:01:11. > :01:13.before June, and now he is the leader of Her
:01:14. > :01:20.Majesty's Opposition, and is on the front page of the papers every day.
:01:21. > :01:24.He's the most interesting figure that's
:01:25. > :01:27.come up the pike in British politics for generations, I would have said.
:01:28. > :01:31.He's also, of course, one of the most controversial.
:01:32. > :01:35.He has been, since before his election, the cause
:01:36. > :01:39.of an enormous amount of, you might say vilification, in many cases.
:01:40. > :01:45.What is it that makes him quite so controversial?
:01:46. > :01:49.He represents a wing of the Labour Party that has been out of much
:01:50. > :01:57.He has policies that, although many people in the country support, and
:01:58. > :02:03.indeed have come back to the Labour Party because he espouses them.
:02:04. > :02:11.The anti-austerity position that he takes on the economy, taking the
:02:12. > :02:14.railways and the public utilities back in to public ownership.
:02:15. > :02:20.These are very popular in in the country actually,
:02:21. > :02:23.but they haven't been pushed by the Labour Party for a long time.
:02:24. > :02:29.The Labour Party has moved, a lot of us think, rather to the right.
:02:30. > :02:33.He does seem as if he is playing politics by rules that many of the
:02:34. > :02:36.commentators in the press and the media aren't really familiar with.
:02:37. > :02:39.They don't quite know how to deal with somebody who is from,
:02:40. > :02:47.Well, I think this is where I have an advantage in writing this book.
:02:48. > :02:52.The people who are in the Westminster village,
:02:53. > :03:00.which is deafeningly noisy, don't actually get much perspective,
:03:01. > :03:03.I think, whereas being outside it one can take a more detached view.
:03:04. > :03:05.I think people who inhabit the Westminster village,
:03:06. > :03:10.and that is the columnists, the political reporters, the editors,
:03:11. > :03:15.MPs and peers and their supporters, they are a bit like wild animals.
:03:16. > :03:19.I mean, they all hunt in a pack, and they know the smell
:03:20. > :03:21.of everything, but they don't remember what was said yesterday,
:03:22. > :03:27.They live in the moment, like animals do, and the moment is
:03:28. > :03:40.I don't think they hear what is being thought out in the country.
:03:41. > :03:42.Part of the problem seems to be when he advances arguments
:03:43. > :03:48.on this or anything else, they get drowned out in the noise,
:03:49. > :03:51.the cacophony of criticism, and quite a lot of that seems to be
:03:52. > :03:56.not just about his politics, his positions, but his competence.
:03:57. > :03:59.The argument is he has come from nowhere, he has no experience - a
:04:00. > :04:03.point you yourself make in the book - he has no experience of managing
:04:04. > :04:05.an organisation of diplomacy, he has always been an oppositionist and
:04:06. > :04:08.he's simply not therefore up to the job, complex job of leading
:04:09. > :04:12.a political party, let alone potentially being Prime Minister.
:04:13. > :04:15.The word "incompetent" is very, very loaded.
:04:16. > :04:23.I don't think that Corbyn is incompetent.
:04:24. > :04:26.He may not have obvious managerial skills, but those will come with
:04:27. > :04:37.He will perhaps get more practised at handling people, but he is
:04:38. > :04:50.appealing beyond the Parliamentary party, to the country at large, and
:04:51. > :04:53.I think his authenticity reads much more powerfully for huge numbers
:04:54. > :05:00.of people than any sense of him being incompetent.
:05:01. > :05:02.You make the point in the book that political
:05:03. > :05:06.Nobody saw Corbyn as a potential winner when he was
:05:07. > :05:09.Nobody predicted the SNP landslide in Scotland, but I
:05:10. > :05:12.am going to ask you nonetheless to do a bit of predicting.
:05:13. > :05:15.People say the Labour Party might split,
:05:16. > :05:20.People say Corbyn might be ousted by his fellow MPs, people say all
:05:21. > :05:26.Well, I don't profess to be able to predict the future,
:05:27. > :05:28.unlike almost all of the columnists and correspondents.
:05:29. > :05:31.There are lots of things one can muse about, and I will muse,
:05:32. > :05:35.if you like, I think there is a strong chance that the Parliamentary
:05:36. > :05:37.Labour Party is so detached from reality they will actually somehow
:05:38. > :05:55.Now, if that happens, then my prediction would be that at least
:05:56. > :05:57.a quarter of a million people would immediately leave the party, which
:05:58. > :06:01.is a very good basis, it seems to me, for a new party - what shall we
:06:02. > :06:04.say - the Democratic Socialists, which I hope then Corbyn and
:06:05. > :06:07.McDonnell and perhaps 25 more MPs would immediately resign, and stand
:06:08. > :06:20.for re-election at a by-election, under these new colours.
:06:21. > :06:23.I have had a look at these MPs who might do that, and it's interesting
:06:24. > :06:26.that the great majority of them have very healthy majorities.
:06:27. > :06:28.So the chance they might come back under these new
:06:29. > :06:42.Perhaps there would be a rump of 20 people in the Commons who
:06:43. > :06:45.represent the Democratic Socialists, let us call them that, which is
:06:46. > :06:48.two-and-a-half times as big as the Liberal Democrats in the House.
:06:49. > :06:51.That would be a very good basis, then, for fighting the general
:06:52. > :06:55.election of 2020, as a new party, right across the country.
:06:56. > :06:58.So when people say, do you think Jeremy Corbyn will be
:06:59. > :07:03.My answer is yes, I do, but not necessarily as leader
:07:04. > :07:06.W Stephen Gilbert, thank you very much indeed.