CORBYN IS NOT A THREAT TO NATIONAL SECURITY

HE WEARS EYEWEAR

Something actually amazing has happened. Today.

Perhaps not an Obama moment, quite - but close.

The most left-leaning Labour MP (arguably) - a 500-1 shot - has just been elected Leader of the Labour Party - despite being vigorously opposed by most of the media, all leading Labour big beasts (Blair, Brown, etc) and the Tories. And he won by a first-vote landslide of nearly 60% of over 400,000 voters (a huge number) - due to his brilliant grassroots campaigning, evident no-nonsense integrity, and lurch (in labour terms) back to solid socialist ground (leaving NATO, cancelling Trident, etc).

Britain has - perhaps for the first time since the 1980s, if not earlier - a bona fide strong oppositional figure who represents exactly what the Conservatives do not - an alternative to rampant capitalism and industrial-militarism. Anti-austerity, pron-nationalisation of industries and railways, in some European capitals he would be considered normal.

In the UK, where the middle ground has slowly moved rightwards since the 1990s, Jeremy Corbyn's views - decently and passionately and intelligently proclaimed - are seen by many as a direct threat.

Indeed, the Government's Defence Secretary has today declared that Corbyn is a "threat to national security" - hardly a democratic reaction to an election of a legitimate party leader in a decomacracy, who has been a sitting MP for 30 years. What next, drone strikes against the Labour HQ?

Corbyn's views may be a threat to Tory certainties, but we are on dangerous ground when a government considers their own ideology to be the only safe and viable one.

Corbyn represents that unusual oxymoron of a clean break with the past that is also a return to it.

Eyewear is thrilled to be publishing a book about him, soon.

I voted for him. I met him once. I admire and like him. I don't always agree with him (on NATO, on not fighting in Syria against IS).

Now we all wish him well. All of us who want a fairer and more compassionate Britain. Here's many years of JC.

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CLIVE WILMER'S THOM GUNN SELECTED POEMS IS A MUST-READ

THAT HANDSOME MAN A PERSONAL BRIEF REVIEW BY TODD SWIFT I could lie and claim Larkin, Yeats , or Dylan Thomas most excited me as a young poet, or even Pound or FT Prince - but the truth be told, it was Thom Gunn I first and most loved when I was young. Precisely, I fell in love with his first two collections, written under a formalist, Elizabethan ( Fulke Greville mainly), Yvor Winters triad of influences - uniquely fused with an interest in homerotica, pop culture ( Brando, Elvis , motorcycles). His best poem 'On The Move' is oddly presented here without the quote that began it usually - Man, you gotta go - which I loved. Gunn was - and remains - so thrilling, to me at least, because so odd. His elegance, poise, and intelligence is all about display, about surface - but the surface of a panther, who ripples with strength beneath the skin. With Gunn, you dressed to have sex. Or so I thought. Because I was queer (I maintain the right to lay claim to that

IQ AND THE POETS - ARE YOU SMART?

When you open your mouth to speak, are you smart? A funny question from a great song, but also, a good one, when it comes to poets, and poetry. We tend to have a very ambiguous view of intelligence in poetry, one that I'd say is dysfunctional. Basically, it goes like this: once you are safely dead, it no longer matters how smart you were. For instance, Auden was smarter than Yeats , but most would still say Yeats is the finer poet; Eliot is clearly highly intelligent, but how much of Larkin 's work required a high IQ? Meanwhile, poets while alive tend to be celebrated if they are deemed intelligent: Anne Carson, Geoffrey Hill , and Jorie Graham , are all, clearly, very intelligent people, aside from their work as poets. But who reads Marianne Moore now, or Robert Lowell , smart poets? Or, Pound ? How smart could Pound be with his madcap views? Less intelligent poets are often more popular. John Betjeman was not a very smart poet, per se. What do I mean by smart?

"I have crossed oceans of time to find you..."

In terms of great films about, and of, love, we have Vertigo, In The Mood for Love , and Casablanca , Doctor Zhivago , An Officer and a Gentleman , at the apex; as well as odder, more troubling versions, such as Sophie's Choice and Silence of the Lambs . I think my favourite remains Bram Stoker's Dracula , with the great immortal line "I have crossed oceans of time to find you...".

E Y E W E A R, THE BLOG - FREEDOM MEANS BEING UNAFRAID TO WRITE WHAT YOU THINK

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