Bernard Ingham: May stumbles, but to elect Corbyn would be madness

Polls, of course, have become notoriously unreliable with people in a rebellious mood as evidenced in the United States and France. But let us assume that Jeremy Corbyn is knocking on No 10’s famous black door. What should this tell the thinking electorate?

To put it bluntly, June 8 presents a test not merely of Britain’s – and therefore our – judgment but also our sanity.

Do you want to feel relatively secure or desperately sorry? Do you want more or less national security?

The choice is clear. Theresa May seeks to protect you as best she can. Jeremy Corbyn is chronically soft on terrorists and, with his well-advertised belief that kind words would turn away the wrath of utter evil, would leave Britain defenceless.

He seems to think that terrorism is our just deserts.

If, however, regardless of the referendum, you place our continuing membership of the EU above all other essentials, then Corbyn, with the Scottish and Welsh Nationalists, Sinn Fein, the Greens and the Liberal Democrats in tow, is your man.

You can be absolutely sure he takes not the slightest notice of public opinion if it does not coincide with his plethora of prejudices.

He certainly has no more chance of negotiating an acceptable Brexit than Bugs Bunny. Like the rest of such a motley coalition, he has never really wanted to leave.

It would be no more than the EU deserved if it got him. It would then have a leader who would never honour Britain’s Nato commitment to stand by Europe in extremis. He would leave France as Europe’s only nuclear power and, if history is any guide, incapable of protecting anybody’s security.

In short, we have in the Opposition leader – and leaders of most of the other minor parties – one who positively hates Britain’s glorious, imperial past and abhors what he imagines the country has become, blaming the “Tories” with a contempt worthy of the archetypal sergeant major confronted by “you ’orrible shower”.

He will not be happy until he is fragmenting our nation and wreaking havoc on the economy.

If you value your job, your prosperity, your community and your Britishness, then take it from me, with my inside experience of tax and spend and Thatcher rigour, you will live to regret installing a man so chronically unsuited to ordering a nation’s priorities.

Significantly, sterling has flopped with the movement of opinion polls against the Tories. Corbyn’s spending, taxing and borrowing – on top of a £50bn budget deficit and a £1.7 trillion national debt – would reduce us to Greek penury and international irrelevance.

We would be back as “the problem child of Europe” with rampant unions, led by Len McCluskey thrown in for good measure. It was not the EU that rescued our economy. It was that reviled “Tory” called Thatcher by substantially ending union abuse of power.

Ah, but waverers might still say, you, Ingham, are always on about the need for a strong opposition. Theresa May should not have a free hand.

Well, voting for Corbyn or members of the proposed “coalition of chaos” would not provide Her Majesty with an Opposition the nation needs. Before we knew where we were the UK would be at an end.

Englishmen who are weary of Nicola Sturgeon may well welcome their release but that is no reason to go mad.

Nor should we kid ourselves that Corbyn has any possibility whatsoever of providing a united opposition. For a start, his own party is in ferment even during an election.

Labour will be in a bigger mess if, as still seems likely, it loses this election, especially as Labour moderates are rudderless in the face of Momentum’s machinations.

In any case, the Tory Party would be a Tory government’s own opposition judging from the unrest over the conduct of the election, the leadership’s silly mistakes over tax and social care, anxieties about a post-election reshuffle and the role of No 10’s apparently omnipotent advisers.

The Conservatives may be by far the best bet for Britain, but mark my words – if Mrs May does not conduct a more collegiate, consultative Cabinet, she will be in entirely avoidable trouble. Just remember what the Wets and the jealously ambitious Europhiles did to the carefully consultative Thatcher.

I feel better for that. I have done my duty.