Fiction Left Politics Satire

MY 11-STEP INDUCTION INTO THE ‘CULT OF CORBYN’

MY 11-STEP INDUCTION INTO THE ‘CULT OF CORBYN’

By Stevedore McCormack (sic)

STEP 1: THE PRAGUE CONNECTION

By January 1997 I was a mess, both mentally and physically. As I stumbled aboard the Gatwick-bound plane in Prague my head was throbbing and beating like an illegal rave was taking place in my brain. I needed to focus on something, on anything. There was a copy of the Guardian newspaper on the seat beside me. I opened it and idly flicked through the pages as all around and all about me various arseholes fussed and struggled with their hand-luggage and overhead lockers.
Then, all of a sudden, a strategically-placed advertisement caught my eye.
The world was suddenly stilled. John Prescott’s big beaming face leapt out at me. It was an advertisement for Ruskin College, in Oxford. The relentless drum-beat in my brain was silenced, and my whole attention was focused then upon that advertisement. This was exactly what I needed, it seemed like destiny. There was a hole in my life that needed filling, and after all, had I not always proclaimed myself to be a socialist? – Well this was surely a sign: and now was the time to put that sign to the test.
I was of course blissfully unaware that a pernicious seed had been planted. In my naivety I actually thought I had found a purpose.

STEP 2: MY POLITICAL RE-EDUCATION

Ruskin seminar, 1997

When I arrived at the brutalist building on Brown Street, I knew very little about John Ruskin, other than he had been appalled to discover that his wife possessed pubic hair.

 

I knew even less about Vladimir Lenin, but when I and an ex-miner from Barnsley were tasked with the job of collating the contents of a recently-deceased tutor’s study, it was a Lenin book that I pilfered: The Development of Capitalism in Russia by V P Lenin.

 

Despite the snappy title I found the book to be something of a slog truth told. But I was relieved to find Noam Chomsky’s Class War – if not a rollicking read exactly – at least far more readable and relatable.

 

Although I was ostensibly studying English Literature, every subject at Ruskin College was viewed through a socialist perspective. Thus Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was approached as a warning: a parable illustrating the inhumanity and slavery necessary for the launch of a capitalist Industrial revolution. When it came to poetry, Shelley’s Masque of Anarchy took centre-stage.

 

That year the avuncular Tony Benn came and gave a talk. The year previous I had heard that a certain man by the name of Corbyn had been invited to speak.

 

I was enthused and caught up in the solidarity of it all. Plus in between the lectures and seminars I was having lots of sex (It was only later I would come to realise that sex is an essential component of all brainwashing cults).

 

 

STEP 3: THE HANDLER

 

I first met my wife Julie (sic) in a pub in King’s Cross (close to Jeremy Corbyn’s constituency incidentally). She was introduced to me by an ex-fellow-student (or should I say inductee) from Ruskin.
It transpired that Julie (sic) was down in London for a Trade Union Conference. We hit it off immediately, not only politically, but she seemed to find my jokes genuinely amusing. I was instantly hooked (or should I say snared).

 

It is only now, two decades later that I realise my wife was quite possibly working for a Russian agent who in turn was working for a Corbyn-linked cabal that had already infiltrated the Trade Union movement.

 

*This infiltration would later pay great dividends to Corbyn when union support helped him become leader of the Labour Party

 

 

STEP 4: THE SLEEPER AWAKENS

 

As I sit here now, after conducting much research and having watched many YouTube videos I now am under no illusions that I was, for many years a de-facto sleeper-agent.

 

I was initially indoctrinated by Bolsheviks at Ruskin College, and then my re-education was enforced and accelerated by my militant shop-steward wife, Julie (sic).

 

I now realise that I was, for all intents and purposes waiting to be activated, along with many hundreds of thousands of fellow ‘sleepers’.

 

Corbynistas, or awakened ‘sleeper agents’ mass-applauding at a Corbyn rally.

 

STEP 5: ACTIVATION. (CORBYN IS ELECTED LEADER OF THE LABOUR PARTY)

 

It was like a switch had been flicked; suddenly all I could think about was Corbyn, Corbyn, Corbyn. I was introduced to Twitter and in no time at all I had learnt the combined power of the soundbite and the hashtag: I ignored all those sane voices that were warning of an emerging cult (Dan Hodges; John McTernan; Nick Cohen etc.) and fired with the righteous, unblinking zeal of a true cultist I began tweeting in earnest.

 

 

COMING SOON: PART TWO OF ‘MY 11-STEP INDUCTION INTO THE ‘CULT OF CORBYN’

 

 

By Steve McAuliffe

 

You can read more Ungagged writing here, or listen to more left views from the collective on our podcast

One thought on “MY 11-STEP INDUCTION INTO THE ‘CULT OF CORBYN’

  1. I bloody loved this! Awaiting the next episode. I imagine Momentum meetings, blackboards, smokey rooms while people with spectacles and Windsor knotted red ties, pace the floors through blue cigarette smoke, maps, and runners bringing news from the provinces…

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