What do the following have in common: right wing Sunday Times polemicist Rod Liddle, Conservative Sunday Telegraph columnist Chris Booker, right wing blogger Tom Winnifrith and his (closet) reactionary father of the same name and Right wing polemicist Peter Hitchens of the Mail on Sunday? When it comes to Jeremy Corbyn quite a lot...
All of us rightly despise him for things like his support of the blood stained murderers of the IRA, his crackpot economic policies and his disgraceful record on (not) tackling anti-semitism in the Labour party. In fact, on a whole range of issues, we all think Corbyn is a quite dreadful and loathsome man.
But this weekend we see that almost the entire media and political classes are wrapping themselves in tattered union flags and fetching out some rusty old sabres for a feeble spot of rattling and are condemning Comrade Corbyn for his attitude to Russia in the wake of the Salisbury poisonings.
And who rides to the defence of the isolated and embattled Jezza? Not his pals at the Guardian or the BBC who are happy to give platforms to anyone who will denounce Comrade Corbyn. But instead folk like Liddle, Hitchens and myself, the last people on earth Corbyn would expect to find defending him, are rallying to his cause.
Corbyn has called almost everything wrong in his political career. He is a man who is almost invariably on the wrong side of history. But when it comes to Britain's foolish forays into Iraq, Syria, Libya and elsewhere he has been bang on the money. Each time he he has questioned claims of outrages and of mortal danger to the UK made by men such as Blair and Cameron as they sought to justify military intervention. He has been ridiculed as a traitor and a fool by most MPs and by the press for such questioning but he has been vindicated.
On Salisbury, Corbyn states that he believes, as do Liddle, Hitchens and myself, that it is probably the Russian state that is to blame. But we are alarmed that Britain has responded without going through the normal channels of independent verification and without offering conclusive proof. In light of the porkies told by both Cameron and Blair to justify the otherwise unjustifiable in foreign affairs, Corbyn is quite right to ask questions. That is his job. He knows it will not win votes as the country is whipped into a frenzy by a "patriotic" media and political class. By Jingo Corbyn is a rotter say they all except for his new friends who see an honourable man doing the right thing.