by Rob Marchant
You could be forgiven for thinking that Andrew Marr’s interview last Sunday was to be an unremarkable one.
The first 16 minutes are fairly anodyne: the leader’s normal waffle on economics and the standard, disingenuous, face-both-ways position on Brexit. Important, but all things we know already.
From 16:25 we get onto Corbyn’s view that transgender people can self-identify, an issue rightly concerning a number of Labour women who see the incorporation of this into the Labour rulebook as a change fraught with opportunities for abuse, at “cis” women’s expense. A fair point. But to be realistic, this is an issue of probably minor importance to the electorate at large.
Then, nearly 19 minutes into a 21-minute interview, Marr, in a Lieutenant-Columbo-like manoeuvre, comes up with “just one more thing”, as he is metaphorically walking out the door, away from the scene of the crime.
“I was reading a poster, about an event celebrating the Iranian revolution, at which you spoke.”
Marr is gently pointing out that he had actively supported the Iranian regime in the past and not merely “engaged” with it.
“What?” The normally genteel Corbyn, for a second, is so startled, he almost snarls.
At this point, Corbyn recomposes himself and explains that he was on a delegation to Iran with other MPs, including former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, discussing nukes and human rights. So that’s all right then.
But it wasn’t all right. It wasn’t at all.
