11 Nov 2015

Arise Rt Hon Jeremy Corbyn? Or stay standing?

Labour has issued a statement saying that Jeremy Corbyn joined the Privy Council this evening and the normal processes were observed.

Some are writing that up as proof the Labour leader kneeled before The Queen.

But he didn’t.

“Normal processes” is a reference to all the other bits of the occasion – turning up, swearing the oath (which it seems like he probably did) and kissing the Queen’s hand (which can amount to a small gesture of the head in the right direction).

Jeremy Corbyn didn’t kneel. He told Meridian earlier today on a visit to a kindergarten that he would not be kneeling but would be meeting the Queen like any other adult.

It’s safe to bet that the Palace would’ve liked that arrangement to have been come to discreetly and quickly. The Queen hates being anywhere near controversy, particularly where the implication is that the Palace is in some way making life difficult for elected politicians.

It has been eight weeks since Jeremy Corbyn first fumbled round the issue in a BBC interview and you can bet The Queen didn’t particularly relish one moment of it.

Does any of this matter?

Interestingly, the Tories haven’t bothered to focus group on Jeremy Corbyn.

They think they know instinctively what voters make of the Labour leader. They believe that incidents like not singing the National Anthem at a Battle of Britain commemoration will lodge in the public mind.

One pollster said he thought the problem for Jeremy Corbyn was not long-held republican sympathies but the hesitant way they are expressed. Make a bold statement, the pollster said, and the public might give you the credit for strongly held opinions. Leave it all hanging in the wind and they might not.

I doubt Jeremy Corbyn bowed when he met The Queen after the Cenotaph ceremony on Sunday because he didn’t join in the bowing as The Queen processed past him at the State Banquet.

Many of his supporters, of course, will rejoice at their man sticking to his principles and bucking convention – exactly what they hoped for when they voted for him.

On a very human note, it’s hard to be sure and his office aren’t confirming but it looks from the photos as though Jeremy Corbyn took his Chief of Staff Neil Coleman with him to the PalaceĀ and also his wife too.

Corbyn arrival at Palace VTGRAB

Next week, at Labour’s National Executive Committee, we may hear a bit more about the substance of the New Politics and which changes Jeremy Corbyn would like to see to the way the Labour Party works.

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