One of the kids, I won't say which one, burst into the kitchen last night and said - "have you seen what Corbyn's lot are doing? They're rioting and burning police cars in London."
This poses a tricky dilemma as a parent.
I had three choices, what do I do?
a) applaud his moral outrage at violence and disorder, but calmly point out that those rioting had nothing to do with the Labour leader.
b) berate him as a Tory lite lackey for swallowing the mainstream media line on legitimate protest against this vile Tory government who are literally slaughtering the poor while he does NOTHING.
c) say no, son, you're right. These are Corbyn's people, his mask of kinder gentler politics covers the ugly mob that have been emboldened and legitimised by the world view that says the correct response to anything you disagree with is to go on a march and protest against it, shout at it, thus attracting nutters who feed off the impotent faux outrage that will inevitably end in the same predictable way.
I ran this exercise on Facebook (which is for friends and family) and enjoyed the largely irreverant responses.
Anyway, game over, the correct answer was of course all 3. He has his own mind, he dislikes Jeremy Corbyn intensely - hence the highly visceral reaction to the burning of a police car. But there are many viewpoints to take on board, not least a more nuanced one about how angry people feel. But non-violence is a bit of line here for me.
Here's the Huffington Post's report on it following the appearance of Class War activist Adam Clifford on the BBC. http://m.huffpost.com/uk/entry/8490644
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