‘Change Labour, change Britain’ has been the internal mantra of the Starmer army since seizing the party leadership nearly four years ago. But while a 20-point lead suggests they’ve made considerable progress in that area, there are infrequent reminders of the not-so-distant Corbynite past. The Rochdale debacle proved to be an uncomfortable reminder of all that, with the Mail on Sunday reporting on 11 February the not-so-savoury views of Azhar Ali.
Even more awkward perhaps was the fact that just five days earlier, Morgan McSweeney – Keir Starmer’s election overlord – was boasting to fellow Labourites about the progress they have made in the field of, er, candidate selection. He told comrades at an internal meeting on 6 February that ‘Candidates are a vital part of… a strategy where we say Labour has changed, our candidates prove that. We have changed how we select our candidates’ adding ‘they are more valuable now than they have ever been.’
One week later and both Azhar Ali and his fellow parliamentary candidate Graham Jones had been disowned for their comments on the Gaza conflict. Previous rows involved the Rotherham and Bolsover candidates, both of whom were deselected after the media dug into their past. So much for changed Labour, eh?
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