Oh dear. Labour under Jeremy Corbyn is about to get a whole lot stranger. The Labour leader has appointed none other than Guardian columnist Seumas Milne as his ‘executive director of strategy and communications’. Milne starts the job next week and joins on leave from the paper.
Joining @jeremycorbyn's office next week as @UKLabour strategy & communications director, on leave from @guardian https://t.co/FCYypF1161
— Seumas Milne (@SeumasMilne) October 20, 2015
The controversial appointment may well do Corbyn some good, in the sense that when compared to the left-wing columnist, Corbyn begins to look like a moderate. While Corbyn has apologised for the Iraq war, Milne has gone further and actually praised the other side. The charming Milne has also commended Russia for ‘challenging’ the West on Syria, blamed the Bush administration for embarking on a path that — he claims — led to terror attacks, and questioned just how many deaths Stalin’s regime actually brought about.
Still, at least Milne can’t be accused of not being a part of the new regime. The journalist has been a champion of Corbyn throughout his campaign, even praising him on a lacklustre conference speech which turned out to be an Ed Miliband cast-off:
‘This was authentic Corbyn. Any idea that using an autocue was going to be the start of a respun Labour leader – or that he somehow wouldn’t be up to it – was put to rest. The themes that won him a leadership landslide were all there: rejection of austerity, solidarity, respect for others’ point of view, a kinder politics, a more caring society. And he claimed them all as both Labour and majority British values.’
Mr S suspects that if Milne was able to spin that speech into a positive, there may be some hope for him yet.
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