Why the anti-Jeremy Corbyn vitriol?

Jeremy Corbyn's unlikely emergence as the clear front-runner to succeed poor Ed seems to have got the Labour party all in a tizzy. At one level this is amusing: surely only the Labour party would become so terrified when one of its leadership contenders turned out to be popular. At another level though it is initially baffling that so many Labour stalwarts seem so keen to predict electoral meltdown, internal schisms, fire, pestilence and eternal damnation should a mild-mannered North London intellectual be elected to become their leader.

Some degree of antagonism during an election process is inevitable of course - how does one rescue a failing campaign except by attacking one's more successful rival? However what we have seen of recent days has been an order beyond that. There seems a real hatred of Jeremy Corbyn and all he stands for - odd, since the hatred seems one-way. He by contrast has refused to engage in mud-slinging and appears to be conducting a campaign remarkably free from vitriol. Even his supporter Ken Livingstone, usually the first to enter any slanging match, accused Tony Blair of no more than having failed to read Corbyn's manifesto.

So what is it all about, this hatred? Why did Blair accuse Corbyn of seeking to 'annihilate' labour and why did Alistair Campbell urge Labour voters to support 'anyone but Corbyn'?

The Corbynistas' view would be a simple one of course. Blair and Campbell are the spawn of the devil and all the other candidates have been brainwashed by their evil campaign to turn Labour into an offshoot of the Tory party. New Labour was a cynical betrayal of everything true believers like them held dear and so New Labour cannot forgive heroic mavericks like Jeremy Corbyn who speak truth to power and question its legacy.

There is some truth in this of course, but also some wilful fantasy. Many of Corbyn's supporters probably are champagne socialists plotting the downfall of the capitalist hegemony from the comfort of their Georgian townhouses, safe in the knowledge that whatever radical policies he pursues it won't touch their final-salary pensions or (horror of horrors) lead to house price deflation. Also, much as it soured towards the end, Blair's New Labour project certainly did do some good things. In the shadow of Iraq it is easy to forget the minimum wage, capital investment in schools, reductions in child poverty, Third World debt write-offs, peace in Northern Ireland... I could go on.

It is also pretty absurd to suggest that Blair and others hate Jeremy Corbyn because he stands for social justice and a protective State. For all their differences of opinion on methods, surely Labour supporters broadly agree on ideals. So why the hatred then?

Partly of course it is the simple fact that there is no conflict more vicious than an internecine conflict. The human species seems to reserve its bitterest hatred for those most like themselves: the Jews and the Arabs; the Northern Ireland Protestants and the Northern Ireland Catholics; Indian Kashmiris and Pakistani Kashmiris; New Labour and Old Labour. Where fundamental values and cultures are entirely different we seem to rub along pretty well: it is only when we are identical but for one small, but (to us) hugely important, difference that we start killing each other in significant numbers.

There is more to it than that though. Labour has had its fair share of internecine hatreds, even before Iraq, but Blair's outbursts recently, and those of other party stalwarts, feel different. For a start they have not come in the context of an unedifying cat-fight of the sort politicians seem particularly prone to. Jeremy Corbyn is not fighting back (he doesn't need to. He is sitting pretty on 53% in the polls). The hatred seems to be self-generating, and coupled with what appears a genuine fear of an existential crisis for the Labour party.

So why would that be then?

Well, oddly enough I have a theory. I think the explanation lies in a variant of the 'zealous convert' syndrome, by which converts to a religion are frequently more antagonistic to their old beliefs than those who have never converted. Blair, Campbell and the rest seem to me to have just the same uneasy, fearful hatred of Jeremy Corbyn as would a zealous convert of worshippers at their own old church.

You see, much as I never liked or trusted him that much I simply cannot believe that Tony Blair joined the Labour Party with the explicit desire to subvert its fundamental principles in a swivel-eyed pursuit of Thatcherite neo-Conservatism. I remember the honest idealism of his first term. As a country we were reeling from Thatcher's onslaught and Blair brought back some sense of social responsibility, of interest in and care for the under-privileged and of an ethical dimension to policy.

The thing is that, like all serious politicians, Blair was a realist. See things from his point of view and there was a logic to his drift to the Right (sort of). Free enterprise and the unfettered power of capital seemed (at the time) a hugely powerful force which could, if harnessed properly, lead to real social good. And for a time it worked. Brown let the bankers off the leash and Labour used the money that came rolling in for some fantastically valuable investment in schools, hospitals and the incomes of the less well-off. Win-win, surely.

Yet there are consequences to selling one's soul, even for the best of motives. Blair, Brown and the rest knew that financial deregulation and the opening of public services to private enterprise was making some people hugely and unfairly wealthy and eroding something central in the UK's view of itself. Yet they went along with it with the slightly manic zeal of recent converts to a charismatic cult. Peter Mandelson's use of the word 'intensely' to show just how relaxed he was at people becoming extremely wealthy shows the internal tensions they were all living with though. Surely even he could have spotted the absurdity of the oxymoron.

And now it is those zealous converts to New Labour that face the existential crisis. Like Faustus, having sold their souls they then discover not just the price, but the illusory nature of the prize too. It is not just that New Labour's reputation now seems (unfairly, in some ways) tarnished beyond recovery, it is also that the unsavoury weapon (neo-conservative economic policies) they gritted their teeth to grasp in pursuit of their aims turns out not to have been a very useful weapon at all. Bank deregulation didn't give us riches beyond the dreams of avarice, it bankrupted us for a generation.

And what Jeremy Corbyn does that is completely unforgivable is to remind them that the uncomfortable road they bravely chose to follow in pursuit of their noble aims really wasn't the only road at all. And didn't take them quite where they wanted to go either. But one thing a zealous convert will never do, however conflicted (s)he might feel and however uneasy deep down about their new religion, is to convert back again.

So don't expect a gracious acceptance of Jeremy Corbyn's victory form Tony Blair any time soon.

London

I don't think I realised the extent to which adrenaline was fuelling my cycle ride in the last few headwind-plagued days. Now though, back in London, it is out of my system and I am utterly and completely exhausted, described by my partner Julie as a broken owl. It's an unusual image but feels oddly appropriate as I hunker down, my feathers fluffed out, my achiles tendons aching, staring wide-eyed at the wind bending the branches of the London plane trees outside.

John o Groats to Land's End was certainly a journey, though it is not immediately obvious where to. It was packed full of immensely valuable experiences - of nature, of the scale and variety of the country, of the people and places encountered along the way - but what did it all amount to as a complete endeavour? Did it have any meaning, and is it even important whether it did or not?

It is interesting of course that we started in Scotland - the country where I lived as an adolescent and young adult - and finished in England, where I now live. Interesting too though that the countryside where we ended up was so strongly reminiscent of the countryside where we began - not just Bodmin Moor with its trackless expanse of sheep-shorn grass tufted with gorse but the wild immensity of the Atlantic seen from Land's End itself. But in a sense the whole endeavour was time apart and divorced from the normal rhythm of my life. I simply cannot now imagine myself getting up tomorrow morning, pulling on cycling shorts still damp from the previous night's washing in the sink, and clipping on a pair of wet and muddy cycling shoes before heading out through unknown tracts of Britain to some distant bed and breakfast and the prospect of a hot shower and a meal involving chips.

Of course journeys have often been seen by religious and philosophical traditions as central to spiritual development. There are symbolic journeys, like the Pilgrim's Progress or the Ramayana or even the Odyssey, but physical journeys are also often seen as valuable or even compulsory undertakings for any devotee. In the Christian tradition there is pilgrimage to sites made holy by a variety of saints, in Islam the Haj, and in the Hindu tradition a huge variety of such undertakings, to and around a whole range of sacred rivers, lakes and mountains.

And it is undeniable that there is some sense in all of us of travel as a metaphor for something to do with our development as people. We talk about 'voyages of discovery', of making 'a great leap forward' in our thinking, or by contrast of being 'stuck in a rut' or 'bogged down' by problems. When we are working through those problems we feel that we are 'really getting somewhere' and 'forging ahead.' So there must be something intrinsic there that we are tuning in to. Journeys really must be good for the soul, in one way or another.

And for me, I am really not sure that it matters where my particular journey led me, because it led me forward. I thought about things, looked at things, experienced things. And then came home.

One word I didn't consider in my somewhat teacherly post prior to setting out was in a sense the most obvious one: voyage. Voyage has its root in the Latin word for a road, 'via', and maybe it encapsulates the essence of what a true voyage is all about. It's not really about the destination at all, or about the challenge of reaching it, or even about the purpose for doing so. It's about the road. About the setting of one foot in front of the other.

Or in my case, the endless repetition of the pedal turns.

Land's End

So we made it, and when we got there who should we see but Michael Portillo filming a piece to camera for a series called Coast to Coast. Land's End is altogether more of a commercial operation than John o Groats, with a fairly ghastly looking theme park and a photography business set up at the signpost. It is a stunningly beautiful place though, and the Atlantic stretches out, wildly beautiful, to eternity.

We were greeted by Martin's family and friends and my own daughter, whooping and whistling and bearing bottles of Prosecco. I felt rather sorry for an Australian end-to-end cyclist who arrived at the same time and was met by no one. Later, as we were being driven back to our accommodation we overtook him cycling back to Penzance.

The last day was actually one of the hardest, with torrential rain in the morning and the strongest headwinds we had encountered all trip. I had reached a sort of mental exhaustion too, and a couple of times on some of the last big hills I almost fantasised about getting off the bike and walking. Seeing the hill stretching on up and feeling my legs burning and my heart pounding I would quite vividly imagine myself admitting defeat and walking the last bit of the hill, pushing my bike.

The weird thing was that my legs simply didn't seem to get the message. They just carried on turning the pedals and before I knew it I would be at the top (and hit by the suddenly even more ferocious headwind). Maybe it was what my late wife called my Mastermind complex: "I've started so I'll finish."

I started this ride, so I finished it.

Dunmere

Nearly there now, though going over Bodmin Moor was rather disconcerting. Sitka spruce plantations, dry stone walls, bracken, gorse, sheep. I thought I was back in the highlands again. In fact though the flowers held the clue: the gorse (in full flower in the highlands) had completely gone over, and the foxgloves were down to their last few florets at the end of long flower spikes. Also the sheep were all shorn, and the lambs almost as big as their mothers.

Today was the day to which words such as 'challenge' and 'battle' were most appropriate - nearly ninety miles and a constant series of sharp ascents and descents ( we climbed a total of 5,500 feet today apparently) and all in the face of a consistent headwind. I had known this all along of course (apart from the headwind), and a part of me had been dreading today, and wondering if I was physically up to it. Yet the odd thing was that in the end it was a bit of an anti-climax. Yes it was hard, and yes, some hills had me pretty much at the limit of what I was capable of. But the fact was, each hill was just another hill, with nothing particularly special about it. And at the end I didn't get a great sense of elation at having passed a personal milestone.

The thing is, (and this may sound odd coming from someone who has recently done the London to Brighton 100k single-day walk and the JoGtoLE end-to-end cycle ride) that I have realised that challenging myself physically is really not something that motivates or even interests me hugely. Yes, I am competitive and yes, I am pleased that I have demonstrated to myself that I can do it, but I have no interest for instance in doing this cycle ride again and beating my time. Or running a marathon. Or anything of the sort, really.

Some people clearly are hugely motivated by discovering and then extending the limits of what their bodies are capable of. I admire such people, but I am not one of them, I have realised.

So why did I do this? It's a big question and I haven't quite got there in answering it yet, but some of it certainly is to do with getting a sense of the whole country - how it changes and how it connects. Some of it too was probably about the symbolism of setting myself a task that was long and arduous and then ensuring that I achieved it. But some of it was almost akin to mindfulness, I realise now. It takes a while, but eventually you do stop thinking about the pain in your backside or the ache in your ankles, or about how far there is to go and how long this climb will last, and you just let your mind go free. And you see and hear and smell things and the incessant rhythm of the pedal-turns frees your mind. For a while. Until the burning in your legs is so bad you can no longer ignore it.

Tiverton

A day of persistent heavy rain and 12 degrees Celsius welcomed us into the West Country. I am sure it was an utterly beautiful ride but its charms were lost on me. We stopped for lunch in a Sainsburys in Bridgewater and sat shaking with cold in the unheated cafe, eating soup and drinking hot chocolate and staring blankly at the rain pounding down outside. The cleaning lady asked us to tell her when we were leaving so she could mop up the muddy water under our chairs . Still, nothing a hot bath at journey's end can't fix.

The route we have been following is a 'safe' route that avoids main roads and makes extensive use of cycleways. It is my first experience of these really - in London I ride in the road, regarding my bike as another vehicle - and they give a completely different feel to the experience of cycling.

I wouldn't choose cycleways if I was in a hurry, but they are often really lovely. Many are on canal towpaths and abandoned railways, and not only are these guaranteed to be more or less level and traffic-free, they are also wonderful corridors of biodiversity through farmland and towns, which is ironic really given their original purpose as the arteries of industrial Britain. Cycling them is also more sociable than belting along head-down beside the traffic on the A38.You see fishermen, canal boaters, dog walkers, elderly couples, families - all human life is there. And everyone says hello (or regional variants).

The problem is that though the best are superb, some are truly atrocious. In towns they can lead you to busy junctions then simply stop, or require you to cross and recross busy roads, or be simply a narrow section of potholed, gritty tarmac delineated by a line that drivers simply ignore. And canal railway paths are hugely variable both as to their surface and the frequency and nature of the anti-motorbike barriers. Some are smoother tarmac than an A road, but others are impossibly rough, muddy, rutted, or even impassable even by mountain bike. The barriers can be such as can be simply rode through (carefully) or they may require you to get off and lift the bike over.

And the thing is, you simply can't tell. There is some (fairly minimalist) signage on cycleways nowadays and they are marked and rouetable on Google, but nowhere is there any sort of indication as to quality, or indeed rideability. So you can head down National Cycle Rout 63 (or whatever) and suddenly find yourself in ankle-deep mud or on a grass towpath with a single four-inch wide meandering smooth line that takes immense concentration and good bike-handling skills to follow.

It's a shame, because I reckon as a country we have made huge advances in encouraging cycling and we're 90% there. The problem is, the other 10% can turn a nice day out into a bit of a epic struggle.

Clevedon

Not much to say about the ride today, or too tired to say it, which amounts to the same thing. More endless rolling miles of country roads, more headwind, more beautiful ancient villages and more contented dairy cattle chewing the cud in lush meadows bordered by neatly trimmed hedgerows. Aside from the industrial areas round Bristol it was largely Shires England at its poshest. Lovely to ride through but I wouldn't want to live there, despite being white, native English speaking, middle aged and relatively well off (which I reckon are pretty much all prerequisites).

So instead of writing about the ride I will write a little about why we are doing it - or why Martin, my ride companion, is anyway. Martin is 61 and has had type 1 (insulin dependent) diabetes since the age of 20. It is clear that the diagnosis came as a bit of a shock to an active, sociable, beer-drinking student back then in the seventies, and it is apparently only recently that he has talked to anyone much about it. His wife and kids knew, of course, which was handy in case he went into a hypoglycaemic coma, but it really wasn't something he ever mentioned. He had learned to handle it in his own way and has always done so very effectively, thanks to good common sense, a sound understanding of food (he cooks for the family) and a handy bag of jelly babies.

I didn't really know any of this of course, but there is nothing quite like spending hours and endless hours grinding along endless country roads to encourage conversation. I also didn't realise to what extent he is set on proving to himself that diabetes (well managed) is not a disability and does not stand in the way of a full and active life. So he swims every morning of the year in Hampstead ponds, cycling up there for 7 am rain, wind or snow.

And so he set out to achieve a lifelong ambition and cycle the length of the country, and I am very pleased to accompany him in doing so. We have to be careful to time food breaks sensibly and I have come to notice when his blood sugar is dropping (simple really - he slows up and goes quiet) but he is unquestionably going to do it.

Martin is raising money for Diabetes UK and has a JustGiving page at https://www.justgiving.com/Martin-Ransley/

Worcester

Canal boats here in the Midlands have a whole different set of connotations from those in the Lea valley in North London. There the inhabitants are often young eco-warriors unwilling or unable to enter London's ridiculous rental (let alone mortgage) market for property. Up here the owners seem much more likely to be men and women of a certain age who see their boat as an idyllic hideaway and quaintly old-fashioned. Instead of stacks of skip-salvaged firewood and nests of well-used mountain bikes, on the roofs of these you will see hand-painted traditional tin jugs and drifts of petunias planted in wooden mock wheelbarrows. Instead of Peruvian alpaca earwarmers the canal-boaters here sport wide-brimmed canvas sunhats, and in place of the ubiquitous solar panels here you tend to see elaborate TV aerials.

The odd thing is that the boats look very similar (though a tad neater and more pristinely painted round here) and have the same sorts of names - 'Free Spirit' and 'Rosie Lee' and 'Jenny Wren' and the like. There is also much more in common than first appears in the atmosphere around them. Here too there is something apart about the canal boaters. They are a small, physically isolated community living out their days on these corridors of tranquillity while twenty-first century life rushes past on either side. So maybe the dreadlocked eco-warriors of Hackney and Walthamstow have more in common with this particular band of Midlands retirees than would initially appear the case.

The canals really are corridors of tranquillity too. Nowadays often quite heavily wooded on both sides, except where they wend their way half-invisibly through post-industrial towns and cities, they are alive with wild flowers, dragonflies and even kingfishers. On one occasion we raced a kingfisher for the best part of a mile. It wasn't much of a race to be honest, except that every hundred yards or so the bird would perch on an overhanging branch and wait for us to catch up. The electric blue of its back against the dark water was magical, and sometimes as it faced us from its perch I would see the contrasting deep red of its breast. Truly gorgeous.

For the rest we passed through a lot of what looked like Archers country, with enamelled signs on farm gates proudly proclaiming the quality of their pedigree Holstein herds. One place boasted a 'Well kept village' award that I am sure was largely the work of a local Linda Snell (and woe betide anyone whose hanging baskets remained unwatered). Mind you, they also had a scarecrow competition that I am not sure Linda would have been happy with: one of the exhibits was a man seated on a toilet with his Y-fronts round his ankles. I mean, maybe that sort of thing is acceptable in Penny Hassett, but really!

One last little incident to recount. As we were getting ready to leave Stoke-on-Trent this morning I was wondering aloud to my ride companion where I could get some black insulating tape to hold in place the end of my handlebar tape. Suddenly I was interrupted by a white van driver who had been parked nearby. Clearly having overheard us he walked over holding out a new and unopened roll of said tape he had got from the back of his van. He said, 'here you are. I've got plenty,' then got into his van and drove off before I could give him the roll back.

Not sure that would happen in London.