Paul Mason on life after Corbynism

PAUL MASON needs very little by way of introduction, the broadcaster, journalist, political activist, novelist and playwright has been a consistent public presence for well over a decade as one of the hordes of left wing voices permeating the media that we at the The Economist must fight so hard against to have our voice heard. Regardless, Mason’s voice is a valuable one and when he speaks it often pays to listen.

I meet Mr Mason at the venue of his choosing, a motorway service station just outside Slough and when he arrives he has a hand rolled cigarette in his hand and you can see he’s already fizzing with ideas he can’t wait to share. He tells me that much of his time recently has been taken up trying to run Keir Starmer’s campaign but that it’s been ‘quite difficult now that he spends all his time with Matt Pound.’

Not that that’s a problem, of course, when I note that he initially backed Clive Lewis, he says says Pound was one of the reasons that once Lewis dropped out he decided to back Starmer. ‘One thing was obvious, though - from his opening broadside in the Guardian to his star team of great socialist minds like Matt Pound - and that was that Sir Keir has a very big brain. A spokesman from his office told me that his quiff keeps it cool.’

Our chat moves to the recent election and I ask him what he thinks could have been done differently. ‘Quite a lot. I mean we had a leader who didn’t see the socialist potential in mass-membership organisations such as NATO, and what do you even do with that? There was also a fundamental failure to back the Remain movement as well - committed campaigners such as Madeleina Kay felt they had been left out in the cold by the opposition. Cohesion. We needed to build a bridge but instead Jeremy tried to walk on water.’

In fact, Mason been quite critical of Mr Corbyn in the aftermath of 12 December even going as far to accuse members of the leader’s staff of being Stalinists and I wonder how he can be so sure they were? ‘I actually have a little tool that I usually keep in my pocket. Hang on, [he rummages in his bag for a second] right here we go. I call this a “measuring jaw”. The woke-poisoned left would scold me and call it phrenology, totally write it off. But I’ve been breaking out of my echo chamber and reading things like Spiked and Quillette. I’m really more of a believer in craniometry.’

He then takes his phone out of his pocket to show me something on it. ‘Anyway, I ended up speaking to the guys from Crowd Comms at a conference. They helped me put the research together to make an app capable of making the measurements from just a photo. An image. So I made some calls and I gave it a name. That’s how CalipR was born and if you want a go, you can get it on the App Store.’

Naturally our chat moves to the leadership contest of the Labour Party and I ask Paul about the recent controversy he became embroiled in regarding Rebecca Long-Bailey and whether he has any issues with Catholics. ‘Let’s put it like this: I obviously believe in personal religious freedom within reason, but when it becomes clear that a British MP is literally taking orders from the Pope in Rome, well… you have to question their loyalties, don’t you? I assume he sends them to her by email as well, so it’s doubly risky.’

Does Paul think he could ever be tempted to take on a role in frontline politics as an MP? ‘Oh, if only you’d asked me that in 2015! I’ve seen the level of abuse that MPs get on and off the internet and I don’t know if I could cope. I mean look at Clive Lewis - they’re saying that he takes drugs, calling him the “Spice Girls” candidate, claiming he necks half and half pints of Lynx Super and Special Brew, wild and untrue rumours about him defecating in a fountain at The World Transformed in Brighton…he’s a braver man than me, I honestly I don’t know how I’d deal with that level of ridicule.’

As you’d expect, our conversion gravitates towards economics and Paul speaks at great length about this, in fact, it’s such a barrage of information that it’s hard to make sense of at times but he has an intriguing view on lessons we could take from Donald Trump. ‘I think going back to what I said earlier about NATO being inspirational to internationalist socialists such as myself, we need to look towards defence. Economically, we have the 2% of GDP policy and I don’t think that’s nearly enough. Really, you have to look at how many jobs have been created in the US just from 3.2% of GDP going to defence. I don’t think Mr Trump knows that he’s actually being incredibly left wing here.’

This interview has been a bit of a whirlwind and I know I’ll have to omit so much for clarity and legal reasons but as our time together comes to an end and I decide to finish with a question about what a man as busy as Mason does to relax and surprisingly I discover that he’s a bit of a foodie. ‘Spice and…no, just spice.’ One wonders what Mr Mason will cook up for the Starmer campaign as the leadership campaign hots up.