”Former leaders of the Labour Party and Unite the Union, Jeremy Corbyn and Len McCluskey, are allies who share a love of poetry.”

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Listen to the full discussion on The Burley Fisher Podcast here.

“There is a poet in all of us and nobody should ever be afraid of sharing their poetry.”

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The Islington North MP and co-author Len McCluskey will read extracts from their new selection Poetry for The Many at Park Theatre, alongside comics Alexei Sayle and Francesca Martinez, and film makers Ken Loach and Morag Livingstone.
Corbyn and McCluskey – former General Secretary of UNITE Union – share a love of poetry and a passionate belief in a fairer Britain, summed up in Labour’s 2017 election slogan “For the many, not the few.”

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“We fail far too many children by only offering them music in nursery and the early years of primary school. Less than 20% of state schools have a music system or an orchestra. In the private sector that figure is 98%. Children in ALL schools should have their creativity encouraged.”

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“In a forthcoming anthology, Corbyn and former Unite General Secretary Len McCluskey have collated a range of works from the well-trodden to the less known: and an enticing list of contributors include Melissa Benn, Rob Delaney, Julie Hesmondhalgh, Ken Loach, Francesca Martinez, Maxine Peake, Michael Rosen and Alexei Sayle.

Corbyn himself being something of an aficionado of the poetic form is perhaps not wholly unexpected. But that ‘Red Len’, that veteran of the dockyards and serial battle talks, also turns out to be something of a literary old softie is a quite delicious revelation. In a voice cracking with emotion, McCluskey read some of the poems which have touched him personally, illustrating precisely why poetry must not be locked away in a gilded cage but be set free to fly into the imaginations of anyone who cares to engage with it.

There will be something in this volume to touch everyone, regardless of their poetic pedigree: I was particularly interested in the story of the largely unknown Juana de la Cruz, whose seventeenth century poems have a strong resonance today.”

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“What is striking about the response to Corbyn’s Shelley tweet is that it is not so much the lions that are rising in unvanquishable number on Elon Musk’s platform, but the unapologetic age of stupid. Many years ago, the late Trotskyist journalist Paul Foot wrote a fine book about the Etonian atheist poet’s revolutionary credentials entitled Red Shelley. You can see why Corbyn is attached to the verse, which echoes his own campaign line: “For the many, not the few”. But why would anyone assume he had written it?”

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