Tonight Martin Freeman will take on a starring role in the latest Labour election broadcast. In the short film, the Sherlock actor says that for him ‘there’s only once choice’ and that’s Labour. Alas for Labour, that hasn’t always strictly been the case.
Mr S recalls the 2001 general election during which Freeman voted not for Labour, but instead for Arthur Scargill’s Socialist Labour party. At the time, Scargill’s party pledged to leave the EU, create a four-day working week, abolish the monarchy and axe the House of Lords if they took power. Then in 2005, Freeman said he would rather abstain from voting than vote for Tony Blair’s Labour in the general election:
‘I don’t know that I am going to vote this time and I would’ve found that unthinkable even three years ago. In 2001, I voted Socialist Labour. I certainly couldn’t vote for Tony Blair.’
Freeman’s support of the Socialist party, which Scargill formed out of anger that Labour ‘abandoned any pretence of being a socialist party,’ comes at an awkward time for Miliband. The Labour leader has had to repeatedly downplay reports of his socialism to appeal to a wider range of voters.
Last year, Miliband had to deny that he is an ‘old-fashioned socialist’ after he refused to rule out re-nationalising Britain’s railways. Then earlier this year the businessman Sir John Ritbat said Miliband was a ‘card-carrying Marxist’ who is ‘unfit to govern,’ while retail tycoon Harold Tilman said that he was only ‘just realising how socialist Miliband is’ which has caused him concern. It seems that Miliband’s leftism has won him new supporters – certainly, in Freeman’s case, some of Arthur Scargill’s old comrades-in-arms.
On the bright side, Steerpike is pleased that Freeman’s endorsement means at least one high earner will be glad to see tax relief cut for those earning over £150,000 should Miliband get into power. After all, your partner can’t be declared bankrupt every year.
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