Jeremy corbyn

Jeremy Corbyn tends to avoid interviews, and we were reminded why this morning. Speaking to Radio 4’s Today programme, he suggested that Britain should be the first free country with a ‘maximum earnings limit’, portrayed immigration as a kind of corporatist scam where Poles and Czechs are ‘grotesquely’ exploited (by working on a minimum wage vastly higher than that of their home country), declared solidarity with ‘socialists’ in Europe over this issue and defiantly proclaimed that he would go on and on as leader. His recent re-election as party leader, he said, was ‘a mandate to take the campaign to every part of the country – that’s what I’m going to be doing, and

In the past week, a report predicted Labour will win less than 20pc of the vote in the 2020 election, Britain’s ambassador to the EU resigned over Brexit ‘muddled thinking’ and the Red Cross claimed there is a ‘humanitarian crisis’ in UK hospitals. So, surely Labour’s top command have much to talk about? Alas not. It turns out that — despite recent events — Jeremy Corbyn has only communicated with his deputy Tom Watson by text of late. Speaking on Ridge on Sunday, Watson disclosed that the pair have only messaged twice since Christmas — once to say ‘merry Christmas’ and the other over the death of John Berger, the art critic: ‘By text, yesterday.

Today’s Fabian Society paper on the state of the Labour Party — and what a state it is — has put Labourites and the leftish Twitterati into a spin. Aptly titled ‘Stuck’, the paper says just over half of the people who voted Labour in 2015 support the party today. And if an election were called right now Labour could expect to win a measly 200 seats: 40 fewer than in 2015 and 70 fewer than in 2010. Most strikingly, Labour has lost four times as many Leavers as Remainers. Clearly sensing their party’s hostility to the idea of leaving the EU, the inhabitants of those Labour heartlands in the

Another day, another Tudor throwback. This time, Jeremy Corbyn has accused Theresa May of acting like Henry VIII by avoiding a vote in Parliament over the triggering of Article 50. ‘She cannot hide behind Henry VIII and the divine rights of the power of kings on this one’, he told the Guardian this week. ‘The idea that on something as major as this the prime minister would use the royal prerogative to bypass parliament is extraordinary – I don’t know where she’s coming from.’ We’ve been here before. Our politicians are addicted to Tudor comparisons: only last August, the Labour MP Barry Gardiner accused Theresa May of seeking ‘to diminish

The Copeland by-election will be a fascinating test of whether Brexit can open up more votes for the Tories in the north – the topic of my Daily Telegraph column today. Labour is slowly abandoning its working class voters, with their unfashionable views on human rights and immigration. This was happening under Ed Miliband, and the forces wresting traditional Labour voters away from the Labour Party were laid out in detail by a strikingly prescient report by the Fabian Society entitled ‘Revolt on the Left‘. It identified the various groups of voters moving away from Labour: typically the low-waged and less prosperous pensioners. Those in work tended to resent those

The hunt continues for the man thought to be responsible for the attack on Berlin’s Christmas market. But despite the urgency of the situation, the Sun says Germany – and the EU – continue to get their priorities all wrong. After all, the paper says, their ‘first duty’ should be keeping ‘their people safe’. Instead, the Sun says, they have released a photo of the wanted man with his eyes censored to protect his privacy. And the European Court isn’t doing much more to help keep people safe, according to the paper. Its ruling against the so-called ‘snoopers’ charter’ yesterday means that security services will lose out on a vital weapon in

Jamie Reed, the Labour MP for Copeland, has announced he is stepping down from Parliament from the end of January 2017. He is leaving to work at Sellafield, which is in his constituency. Reed is a well known critic of Jeremy Corbyn, and though his resignation letter is warm and polite, it makes frequent and pointed references to the need for a Labour government. It closes with Reed wishing Corbyn well in his endeavours to become the next Labour Prime Minister, something the MP has made pretty clear in previous statements that he thinks is impossible. So why is he leaving? Reed’s constituency is now a marginal seat, with a

Thousands of workers are walking out this week in a series of strikes affecting post offices, railways and airports – but who is to blame for this wave of industrial action? The answer is obvious, says the Daily Mail: ‘union dinosaurs’. The paper says the RMT president Sean Hoyle’s remarks that he wanted to bring down the Tory government finally revealed the ‘key aim’ of the strikes, and in doing so pushed away the ‘pretence that the vicious campaign of action which has crippled Southern rail has anything to do with safety’. It says that, as ever, the ‘first casualties’ in these latest strikes are the ‘long-suffering public’ and that while,

As MPs begin to wind down for the holidays, Jeremy Corbyn appears to have other ideas when it comes to a quiet Christmas. The Labour leader has plunged himself into a fresh row with his party over his links to Sinn Féin. Corbyn has hired a former Sinn Féin member of staff to join his office in the new year. Jayne Fisher, previously head of Sinn Féin’s London office, has been appointed head of ‘stakeholder engagement’. Announcing the news to MPs, Corbyn is said to have described her as ‘very lovely’. Yet as ‘lovely’ as Fisher may be, this doesn’t quite cut it as far as MPs are concerned. Many are worried that the move

Since Jeremy Corbyn was elected Labour leader, the party has struggled when it comes to forging a positive relationship with the MSM (mainstream media). Right wing press aside, Corbyn has taken issue with coverage from the BBC, New Statesman, The Guardian, the Mirror and Channel Four. However, are times a-changin’? Last night journalists were welcomed into the Leader’s Office for Corbyn’s Christmas drinks. True to form, Corbyn stayed on brand — using a box Chilcot Reports as a handy door stopper. However, in a sign that he is willing to compromise in order to appeal to the masses, the vegetarian lay on a spread of chicken legs and pork pies for hungry hacks.

Last year it was a bicycle, this year it’s a dove. Yes, Jeremy Corbyn has refrained from using a photo of himself for Labour’s annual Christmas card for a second year: However with May, too, opting for an illustration, Mr S is beginning to miss the Cameron and Miliband years.

Labour’s dire performance in the Sleaford by-election is just the latest sign of a party in terminal decline. To cap it off, a YouGov poll out this week puts them 17 points behind the Tories – their worse showing since the gloomy days of Gordon Brown. Jeremy Corbyn is taking his share of the blame for the miserable state of the Labour party. But for me, the beginning of the end for Labour can be traced back to well before Corbyn. The third of March, 2011, to be precise. It was on this day the Barnsley Central by-election brought rising Labour star Dan Jarvis into Parliament. As a rookie reporter for the Barnsley Chronicle, I