On your first day as a spin doctor for the opposition there are a few things that you probably shouldn’t do. Near the top of that list is going to the pub and asking a Muslim journalist if they are an Al Qaeda supporter.
But that’s what Steve Howell did on Monday after starting his job as Jeremy Corbyn’s new deputy director of communications. Seumas Milne took his new colleague — and one-time Straight Left comrade — to the Red Lion for a post-work drink.
Alas it proved to be a bit more dramatic than planned when guests from the Fabian Society’s ‘What now for Syria?’ Commons event flocked in. One of the speakers at the event was Oz Katerji, a journalist who is a vocal opponent of Corbyn over his position on Syria — having previously heckled the Labour leader at a Stop the War event over his failure to call for regime change in Syria.
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