As Seumas Milne attempts to settle in to his new job as Jeremy Corbyn’s director of communications, the former Guardian columnist has got off to a rather shaky start. As well as making headlines himself over his controversial appointment, the negative press surrounding Corbyn has shown no sign of disappearing with a fresh storm recently emerging regarding Milne’s colleague Andrew Fisher. Perhaps aware of his own shortcomings, Milne was even overheard outside a pub on Thursday asking the BBC’s political editor Laura Kuenssberg for advice on how to do his job.
Now, Corbyn’s other original Guardian cheerleader Owen Jones has stepped in to offer Milne some advice of his own. Following the negative press Corbyn received this week over whether he had bowed deeply enough at the Remembrance Sunday service in Whitehall, Jones has suggested that Corbyn’s team will need to adopt a better strategy in order to deal with the negative press:
The media onslaught against Jeremy Corbyn is bonkers. But Labour needs a strategy to deal with it. My suggestions: https://t.co/qF9Af088ME
— Owen Jones (@OwenJones84) November 11, 2015
Jones says that Corbyn needs to go on the offensive and challenge the negative stories in order to have any chance of ‘turning the tables’:
‘They are trying to paint him as somebody who’s unpatriotic so he needs to come up with a response to that, so I think he should go on the offensive there: what is more patriotic than trying to rid your country of injustice. He could turn the tables.’
Of course, given that Jones is Milne’s old colleague and comrade at left wing demonstrations, Mr S can’t help wonder why he opted to make his advice public, rather than give Milne a call — perhaps Jones, who is rumoured to have been approached for a position on Corbyn’s media team after the leadership election, is now after a career change of his own.
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