There
are many extra-ordinary things about Jeremy Corbyn, recently elected leader of Britain’s
Labour Party, and hence, Leader of HM Opposition: his support for nuclear
disarmament and opposition to renewing Trident, his failure to endorse ‘austerity-lite’,
his campaign against the Iraq war, his election to the Labour leadership with
59% of the vote, his ranking as the MP with the lowest expenses claim (although
somebody has to be at number 650 on that list), and his choice of attire. Almost
as remarkable, and rather less remarked upon, is that he does not own a car (according
to Wiki and the Financial Times).
As
the FT article notes,
“When not attending
rallies, constituency meetings and picket lines, Corbyn likes to tend to his
allotment, make jam, eat cheese and read about railways. He seldom drinks and
does not own a car, preferring to cycle. He is also a keen photographer of
manhole covers.”
(apparently, as long as they were installed by public sector bodies).
What
we do not know is whether this is because Jeremy Corbyn is a Rational Economic
Man. Has Mr Corbyn applied the textbook nostra of the Standard Economic Model,
carried out a cost-benefit analysis and decided that the downside of owning a
car (cost, hassle, risk) outweighs the upside (convenience, some of the time). Does
he just prefer to be on his bike or on foot? Perhaps he has he never learned to
drive – it’s a useful life skill, as there are times when it’s hard to find an
alternative to using a car. You just don’t have to own one. Is it because, as a
man of the people, Mr Corbyn sees car ownership, life in a box on wheels, as
insulating him from the rest of humanity?
Or maybe it’s a refusal to be part of oil-fuelled
corporate capitalism, with its oil dependency, resource wars and implications
for foreign policy.
Whatever
the answer, it’s hard to believe that there has been any other Leader of the
Opposition since the Second World War who hasn’t owned a car. So is the carfree
Mr Corbyn hopelessly out of touch? Or ahead of the curve? (picture: Wikipaedia)
