Corbyn

Corbyn’s birthday plea

Over the past few weeks, company emails have been flooding into inboxes asking the recipient to give consent to remain on mailing lists. Given the repetitious nature of the message, the emails have begun to all fade into one. So, today’s GDPR email from the Labour party stuck out thanks to its originality. In a plea to Labour supporters, party staffers asked recipients to click the ‘keep me updated’ button on the basis that it’s Jeremy Corbyn’s birthday this weekend and ‘the last thing he wants as a gift is to see our movement lose strength!’: Who ever said Corbyn’s Labour was a personality cult…

Fact check: Corbynista support for Maduro

Once upon a time, Labour politicians were lining up to praise the socialist achievements of the government in Venezuela. These days it’s a much harder sell thanks to the fact that 82pc of households live in poverty. Happily, John McDonnell has found a workaround. Speaking on the Sunday Politics, the shadow chancellor rejected the idea that Venezuela was an example of  the failed socialist economic model. Instead the issue is apparently that when Nicolás Maduro took over from veteran socialist leader Hugo Chávez it ‘took a wrong turn’ and now ceases to be ‘a socialist country’. Only Mr S isn’t so sure this defence holds up. For one, someone forgot to tell

Jeremy Corbyn: ‘you’d better make f—ing sure I don’t get elected’

At times it has seemed as though Labour under Jeremy Corbyn has not seen winning power as a top priority. Now it seems that winning the Labour leadership contest wasn’t even Corbyn’s desired result in the beginning. In an interview with Owen Jones, Corbyn ally Jon Lansman reveals what Corbyn said when he made it onto the ballot paper: OJ: Do you remember what Jeremy Corbyn said when he got on the ballot paper? JL: He said ‘you’d better’… am I allowed to say ‘f–cking’ OJ: Yes JL: He said ‘you’d better make f—ing sure I don’t get elected’. Mr S suspects Corbyn has since changed his tune…

Should the government share full intelligence with Corbyn?

Ben Wallace has caused a stir today with an interview on the Today programme. The security minister confirmed that the government had not shared full intelligence on the Skripal poisoning with Jeremy Corbyn – insisting that the ‘circle’ of those with access to the highly sensitive information should be restricted to only a small number: ‘This is serious stuff and the circle of who gets to see very sensitive information is very small, because if you leak it or it gets out, people’s lives are put at risk. The best example is Mr Skripal; that’s what happens to people if other countries to decide to take actions or they have

Jeremy Corbyn’s anti-Semitism response backfires

As MPs go into the Easter recess, Jeremy Corbyn is rounding up one of his worst weeks as leader yet. After the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Leadership Council wrote to the Labour leader accusing him of ‘again and again’ siding with ‘anti-Semites rather than Jews’, both members of the Jewish community and Labour moderates attended a demonstration in Parliament Square to voice their concerns. Only some of Corbyn’s more dedicated supporters weren’t having any of that and staged a rival protest defending their leader from ‘MSM smears’. Today we begin to see Corbyn’s team’s attempt to change the narrative and tackle the issue. Corbyn has

Watch: Labour MP turns on Corbyn in the Chamber over Russia

Oh dear. It’s no great secret that the Parliamentary Labour Party has struggled to get to grips with Jeremy Corbyn’s response to Russia over the poisoning of a former Russian double agent on British soil. However, up until now they had refrained from criticising him directly in the Chamber. Today John Woodcock decided to go there following Theresa May’s statement on Russia. After Jeremy Corbyn claimed in his response that he had always been an outspoken critic of Russian aggression, the Labour MP decided he ‘could not let that remark go by’: ‘I’m sat here reading his article in the Morning Star after Russia annexed part of Ukraine where the

Diary – 22 March 2018

I went to a dinner for Toby Young, who has had some troubles of late, at this magazine’s gracious HQ, hosted by the editor. I was slightly dreading being beasted by a reptilian gathering of hard Brexiters, but it was in the diary. So I tipped up last Friday in a somewhat plunging jumpsuit and accepted only water as aperitif, wittering about not having done my column yet and having to do Newsnight later. Half an hour later I was knocking back claret and competing to tell embarrassing stories about Toby and it was still only 7.15 p.m. (the evening started at the ungodly hour of 6.30 p.m.). Over the

Will Russia disrupt the local elections?

Will Russia disrupt the local elections? That’s the question being asked in Westminster. But rather than worries over Russian meddling and subterfuge, the issue at hand is whether Jeremy Corbyn’s questionable response to the attempted murder of a former Russian double agent on British soil will help boost the Conservative vote come May. Those local elections are expected to be a blood bath for the Tories, with Labour predicted to win big – particularly in the capital. The Conservatives are so worried about the vote that the managing expectations operations includes suggesting that it would be a disappointing night for Labour if the party didn’t win every London council. But in

‘Stalin’s nanny’ backs Corbyn

There was much excitement last week when Susan Michie told Communist Party members – at a meeting at the Marx Memorial Library in Clerkenwell – that they should work ‘full tilt’ to propel Jeremy Corbyn into No 10. Her claim that such a stance could act as ‘a potential springboard for strengthening organic ties with Labour’ will no doubt have worried moderates concerned about the party’s direction of travel under Corbyn. So, Mr S was curious to read Sarah Baxter’s column in the Sunday Times. Baxter writes that Michie was a contemporary of hers at Oxford university – where Michie was given the nickname ‘Stalin’s nanny’: ‘“Organically”, the communists are already

Labour’s Brexit position could be about to evolve into a big problem for the Tories

Theresa May goes into the weekend safe in the knowledge that she has managed to reach an agreement with her divided ministers on the type of relationship Britain will seek with the EU after Brexit. But given that this unity is over a position of their own creation that Brussels may well say no to (and it’s not clear how the Irish border fits into it all), it’s safe to say that the Prime Minister’s troubles are far from over. With the government thought to be seeking a loose relationship that allows the UK to diverge from EU standard, Donald Tusk has been quick to criticise the reported position as ‘pure

How should the Tories attack Corbyn on foreign policy?

How should the Tories attack Jeremy Corbyn on foreign policy? Today’s Sun splashes on a story about the Labour leader and a Czechoslovakian communist spy. The paper claims that Corbyn briefed a communist spy – masquerading as a Czechoslovakian diplomat – during the cold war. Gavin Williamson has been quick to denounce Corbyn’s behaviour as a ‘betrayal of this country’. As for Corbyn’s response, his spokesman says he did meet with a diplomat but insists he ‘neither had nor offered any privileged information’. The story has divided opinion online with Corbyn’s critics quick to cite it as further proof that he hates the West and Corbyn’s fans quick to slam it as another

The Tories must hold their nerve on tuition fees

One upshot of last week’s reshuffle is that Number 10 will get its review of higher education. But a lengthy look at tuition fees would be a mistake in both policy and political terms, I argue in the magazine this week. Tuition fees have all but killed the Liberal Democrats. The breach of their manifesto pledge to abolish the charges, compounded by them voting for a fees increase, broke the party. Even the Tories can’t compete, nor should they want to, with Labour’s pledge to abolish tuition fees. So any plan to reduce fees isn’t going to work politically. All it would do is help Labour by pushing the issue

Paul Mason’s elite panic

Oh dear. After three Momentum candidates – including key Corbyn ally Jon Lansman – were elected to Labour’s national executive committee on Monday, the NEC swiftly moved to oust Ann Black as chair of the Disputes Panel in favour of Christine Shawcroft. Given that Shawcroft was previously suspended by the party in 2015, the move has raised alarm bells in the Labour party. However, should you be concerned that Shawcroft is now responsible for deciding whether to investigate sexist, racist, homophobic and anti-semitic abuse, you’re probably just a member of the elite. Or at least that’s what Paul Mason thinks. The journalist-turned-revolutionary took to social media to cause an elite panic*

Momentum’s purge of the NEC is a sign of things to come

The election of three Momentum candidates – including key Corbyn ally Jon Lansman – on Monday to Labour’s national executive committee was reluctantly accepted by moderates for want of a better option. Several Labour MPs anonymously complained to the press that they would go independent should the party try to bring in trigger ballots – but the fact these quotes are anonymous shows that no-one is willing to take the fight public just yet. The events of today, however, will give Labour centrists food for thought. With the Corbyn-wing of the party now boasting a clear majority on the committee, members were given a glimpse of what that means in

Chris Williamson rebrands as Labour’s attack fox

The news that Chris Williamson has resigned from the Labour front bench has been met with dismay by Conservative MPs who quite enjoyed his calls to double council tax on some of the highest-value properties. However, fear not, Williamson will continue to play a pivotal role in Corbyn’s Labour. In an interview with Corbynista site Skwawkbox (natch), Williamson lifts the lid on his new role – as requested by the Labour leader. he will be using his background as a ‘hunt saboteur’ to work on the party’s environmental stance: ‘Jeremy has also asked me to develop our thinking around environmental and animal rights issues, in line with my background as a

Meet Emma Dent Coad, Kensington’s class warrior

Emma Dent Coad, Kensington’s new Labour MP, has a rule: ‘Don’t do personal.’ Except, that is, when it comes to David Cameron (‘Camoron’), George Osborne (‘double dipstick’), Boris Johnson (‘baby-daddy’), Nick Clegg (‘puny’), a local Tory rival (‘freeloading scumbag’), politicians generally (‘knaves, sophists, deceivers’), the judge running the Grenfell Tower inquiry (doesn’t ‘understand human beings’), the Queen (‘Elizabeth Saxe-Coburg-Gotha’), Prince Charles (‘massive tax evasion’), the Duke of Cambridge (‘so thick’), the Duchess of Cambridge (‘Kate Kardashian’), Prince Harry (‘playboy prince’) and black Conservative London Assembly member Shaun Bailey (‘token ghetto boy’). Dent Coad came to politics late, but during her half-year in Parliament she has experienced enough drama for a

‘I’m not marching towards some utopia, I’m marching towards my Oscar’: Jonathan Pie interviewed

At some point in the early 21st century, comedy stopped being funny. Politics became the biggest joke on earth, thanks to Trump, Corbyn, Trudeau, Rees-Mogg et al. The professional humourists couldn’t keep up. They turned worthy or bitter or both. Satirical TV news shows, like Mock the Week and Have I Got News For You, ceased to entertain. Famous comedians became Twitter bores. Intelligent stand-ups became pretentious whiners. Satirists on the fringes, meanwhile, became angry and serious. The actor and comedian Tom Walker is seriously angry. His creation, Jonathan Pie, is a TV news reporter who hates his job and life, and it’s an online hit. The sketches involve Walker, playing Pie, foaming

An appeal to the masses

As the Tories struggle to find a policy which might appeal to their traditional supporters and not simply ape those of Jeremy Corbyn, how about a reprise of Solon’s law against idleness? In 594 bc Solon was made arkhôn in Athens to deal with a number of problems, including debt. Solon ruled, for example, that if fathers did not find a trade for their sons, their sons would not have to support them in old age; and to boost trade and jobs, encouraged foreigners to settle in Athens with their families, and facilitated Athenian commerce abroad. He also passed a law (we are told) against idleness: every year every family

Pole position | 5 October 2017

Did you know that they used to make the Fiat 126 in the Eastern bloc? They did, apparently. There was a plant at Bielsko-Biala, and the car was widely driven throughout Poland in the 1970s, when you only had to wait a couple of years to buy one. It became an emblem of personal freedom, and Poles even gave it a nickname: Maluch, or ‘little one’. That’s the principal insight that I gleaned from director Karolina Sofulak’s decision to set Cavalleria rusticana in communist Poland. She explains her thinking in the programme book: essentially, 19th-century Sicily was Catholic and repressive, and 1970s Poland was Catholic and repressive, so why not?

Corbynistas fail to practise what they preach

TFL’s decision not to renew Uber’s licence in the capital has gone down like a cup of cold sick with many Londoners – including a good chunk of the 40,000 drivers who will soon be out of work. However, over at Labour conference in Brighton, the decision has proved very popular. It’s been praised at the fringe events, by Labour politicians and just today Tim Roache –  the General Secretary of GMB – has spoken at conference where he called on all Labour members to boycott the taxi firm. Alas Mr S thinks his words may have fallen on deaf ears. So far, several conference attendees trying to get an Uber to or