Best seller: The annual includes a word search, crossword and the key components for a game of ‘pin the beard of the Jeremy’
It’s a gimmicky read based solely on the Jeremy Corbyn personality cult, is full of ridiculous jokes and will probably end up in the bin after a couple of days.
No, it’s not the Labour Party manifesto but the must-have gift for the dear leader’s supporters this Christmas – a 2018 annual dedicated to the unlikely socialist pin-up.
Like Corbyn himself, the hardback is rooted in 1970s tradition, and might appeal to those idealistic young Left-wingers too daunted to tackle traditional texts, like the Communist Manifesto.
Instead of complex political theory, the Jeremy Corbyn Annual 2018 contains a word search (can you find ‘proletariat’?), crossword (the none-too-challenging answer to 2 down is ‘Corbyn’) and the key components for a game of ‘pin the beard on the Jeremy’.
The book is not, however, the latest recruiting gimmick from the Momentum wing of the Labour party, but a spoof created to cash in on Corbynmania this Christmas.
That would explain sections such as Jeremy’s comic-strip adventures, a kids’ page featuring ‘Whitebeard’ the pirate and the ‘Jeremy’s Lost The Plot’ maze.
The book includes a photo love story featuring a young Hugh Grant
Corbyn has even been reimagined as an agony aunt, suggesting fresh vegetables as a token of affection, and a fashionista with tips such as ‘show skin strategically: looking sexy doesn’t just mean baring all, it’s about preserving the mystery’.
There is also a black-and-white photo story about a young admirer falling for Corbyn, who is portrayed by a young Hugh Grant.
The photographs were originally shot in the 1970s for My Guy magazine, but a scribbled-on beard transforms the future Notting Hill star into the socialist campaigner. Meanwhile new captions capture the depth of passion in the story.
‘I’ve prepared some Labour Party leaflets and I was hoping to put you in charge of stapling them all together,’ he tells the besotted Carol. ‘Oh Jeremy, you’re so funny and dishy,’ she swoons.
Other activities include a Jeremy’s ‘Lost the Plot’ maze and an agony aunt column, Ask Jeremy
The book, billed as a ‘Corbyn- ucopia’ of fun, has been created by brothers Adam and Dicken Goodwin with fellow comedy writer Jonathan Parkyn and has proved a publishing success, even outselling The Beano annual in some stores.
‘The first print run sold out in three weeks,’ said Colette Whitehouse, head of marketing for publishers Pavilion. She said the book has an ‘irreverent humour’ and ‘a touch of nostalgia for older readers as it harks back to the annuals they may remember from the 1970s’.
The Labour whips’ office in the House of Commons is known to have a copy. But it’s not clear whether a certain avuncular figure with a white beard, odd dress sense and a love of hand-outs delivered it down their chimney.
Nor is the annual the only Corbyn-themed book out this Christmas: there’s a Corbyn colouring book and cut-out book too.
It also includes the key components for a game of ‘pin the beard on the Jeremy’