Jeremy corbyn

Friday

Steerpike

Watch: Emily Thornberry's calamitous Question Time appearance

Emily Thornberry put in a memorable performance on Question Time last night. Unfortunately for the shadow foreign secretary, it was an appearance that will be remembered for all the wrong reasons. Thornberry was heckled after sucking up to Corbyn, and she managed to make the audience groan when she claimed what united Labour was ‘so much more than what divides us’ (Mr S suspects there are many Labour MPs who might disagree with that view). Thornberry also tried to claim Labour were more grown-up than the Tories, saying her party fought ‘in the press’ rather than ‘in closed rooms’. But she saved her biggest clanger for when she was talking

Steerpike Steerpike

Paul Mason turns on Jeremy Corbyn

Since stepping down as the economics editor of Channel 4 News, Paul Mason has become a key cheerleader for Jeremy Corbyn. Mason has used media appearances — along with his social media — to campaign for the Labour leader and call out MPs who fail to show Corbyn sufficient loyalty. So, Mason today finds himself in a curious position after the Sun published a video which shows him suggesting Corbyn does not have what it takes to be leader. In the video, the former broadcaster confides to a comrade that Corbyn needs to be replaced by someone like Clive Lewis as Jezza ‘doesn’t appeal to the mainstream working class vote’.

Thursday

Robert Douglas-Fairhurst

Behind the fringe

‘Sexual intercourse began / In nineteen sixty-three,’ Philip Larkin famously announced in his poem ‘Annus Mirabilis’, ‘Between the end of the Chatterley ban / And the Beatles’ first LP.’ But the key line is a far more private confession, caught in parentheses like a gloomy thought bubble: ‘(which was rather late for me)’. Few of Larkin’s contemporaries would have been more sympathetic than Alan Bennett. In 1963 he was appearing on Broadway in Beyond the Fringe, the hit satirical revue that also featured Peter Cook, Dudley Moore and Jonathan Miller; and while this led to him rubbing shoulders with the stars (the first- night audience included Rita Hayworth and Stravinsky,

Wednesday

Lloyd Evans

Jeremy Corbyn changes tactics at PMQs - but he still lacks any killer instinct

Corbs is back. And he’s getting his act together. He showed up at PMQs looking estate-agent smart. White shirt, natty blue suit, a red tie mounting, nearly, to its correct position at the throat. His second landslide victory has suffused him with calmness and authority. As he boasted to Mrs May, his position as leader was confirmed by 300,000 members of his party. ‘More than her,’ he needled. The Labour leader is changing his tactics. He’s ditched his habit of using PMQs to pass on gripes from a mysterious Customer Complaints Desk at Labour HQ. This politically suspicious and psychologically whiney ploy was never likely to prosper. It painted Corbyn

Steerpike Steerpike

Labour: why not protest outside the American embassy?

Well that didn’t last long. Just minutes after Jeremy Corbyn completed a fairly successful turn at PMQs, his spokesman plunged Labour into another row over Russia’s behaviour in Syria. Following the Foreign Secretary’s call for the public to protest outside the Russian embassy, Corbyn’s spokesman thinks they might as well head to the American embassy while they’re at it: Jeremy Corbyn's spokesman tells us there is as much reason to protest outside the American embassy, as the Russian, over Syria attacks. — Heather Stewart (@GuardianHeather) October 12, 2016 Labour: "People are free to protest outside all the intervening powers' embassies." — Steve Hawkes (@steve_hawkes) October 12, 2016 Looks like Jeremy

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Jeremy Corbyn gives Theresa May a tougher time at PMQs

PMQs isn’t the total walk over it once was. Jeremy Corbyn has improved, albeit from a low base, and Theresa May hasn’t yet developed the mastery of the chamber that David Cameron had. Today, Corbyn led on the whole confusion over whether or not businesses would have to list their foreign workers. But May was fairly comfortable on her old Home Office turf. Corbyn then moved to Brexit, using May’s pre-referendum warnings about leaving the single market against her. May, however, had a decent line about a second referendum, saying that Labour MPs should know that you can ask the question again and still get the answer you don’t want.

Steerpike Steerpike

Breaking: Jeremy Corbyn wins over a Tory voter

Mr S has an apology to make. On Monday, Steerpike suggested that the news that Paul Weller — a man who wanted to vote for Russell Brand in the last general election — had endorsed Jeremy Corbyn wasn’t such a coup given that Labour need to convince Tory voters of his electability in order to have any chance of gaining power. However, it has now come to Mr S’s attention that the rocker is actually a former Tory. During Weller’s time in The Jam, the singer provoked controversy when he said the band supported the Conservatives: ‘I don’t see any point in going against your own country. All this “change the world” thing is

Monday

Katy Balls

Jeremy Corbyn in the firing line over Russia at PLP meeting

Although Jeremy Corbyn’s spokesman described tonight’s meeting of the PLP as barely registering on the Richter scale in terms of hostility, it could hardly be described as an hour of sweetness and light. While the meeting appeared to get off to a good start with loud cheers that could be heard from the corridor, it later transpired that the applause was for Rosie Winterton — the chief whip Corbyn sacked — rather than the Labour leader himself. When Corbyn praised Winterton for her work in the role over the past six years, he was heckled by MPs who questioned why he had fired Winterton if he really thought so much

Steerpike Steerpike

Corbyn's latest cheerleader wanted to vote for Russell Brand in general election

With the latest ICM poll putting the Tories on a 17-point lead over Labour, it seems as though Jeremy Corbyn’s beleaguered party are in a bit of a jam. But fret not — they have a plan. Today Momentum have released details of its new initiative ‘Concerts for Corbyn’. The plan is to inspire the nation to vote for Labour with music. What’s more Paul Weller will play at the first of these concerts. Explaining his decision, the rocker said he agreed to perform as he likes ‘what Corbyn says and stands for’. So, is this a sign of the swing voter finally being wooed back by Labour? Alas not. It turns out

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Tories open 17-point lead over Labour, in post-conference poll

Today’s ICM poll makes grim reading for Labour MPs. The poll – based on samples taken from Friday to Sunday – shows that the Conservatives have received an impressive post-conference bounce, opening a 17-point lead over Labour: Conservatives: 43pc (up 2) Labour: 26pc (down 2) Ukip: 11pc (down 2) Lib Dems: 8pc (down 1) Greens: 6pc (up 2) To put things into perspective, if this lead were to play out in an election — on old boundary rules — the Conservatives’ majority could be boosted to 114 seats. The 17-point lead is the joint second highest ever recorded for the Conservatives by ICM — which has been polling since 1992 — only being

Steerpike Steerpike

Labour's frontbench hypocrisy on grammar schools

On Sunday, Shami Chakrabarti was forced to use an appearance on Peston on Sunday to claim that she was not a hypocrite after the topic of grammar schools was raised. The issue? Although the shadow attorney general is vocal in her opposition to selective education in the state, she sent her own son to a selective fee-paying school. Shami Chakrabarti defends herself against claims of hypocrisy on the issue of selective education. #Peston pic.twitter.com/z2AIyIFAx0 — Peston (@itvpeston) October 9, 2016 While Chakrabarti insists that buying choice for herself while denying people without money the same option does not make her a hypocrite — explaining that as she is rich she is

Sunday

Freddy Gray

Republicans revolting against Donald Trump should look at the Labour Party, and despair

The Donald Trump story and the Jeremy Corbyn story are same tale told by different countries. A political party reinvents itself in the 1990s, wins power, but then dishonestly drags its nation into a terrible war in Iraq. It becomes widely reviled. The party is still in power a few years later when the financial system collapses. The party takes desperate measures to keep the country’s economy going – rescuing failed banks – but that in turn leads to more unpopularity and distrust among the public. It loses power. In opposition, the party’s base – its core voters – starts to revolt. The party then loses another election. Then the party’s grassroots have a

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Whips' resignations show there will be no easy peace in Labour

The branches on Jeremy Corbyn’s olive tree appear to be experiencing a case of stunted growth. The Labour leader had joked that he would grow one as part of his efforts to tempt moderates back and assemble a full frontbench team. However, since he unceremoniously sacked Rosie Winterton as Chief Whip in the first move of his reshuffle last week, relations between the Corbynites and the moderates are — once again — frosty. Wounded by the departure of a popular colleague — along with a shadow cabinet which fails to have Labour’s only Scottish MP as the secretary for Scotland — a number of MPs no longer feel the need to put on a brave face over Corbyn’s re-election. Following John Cryer’s

Saturday

James Forsyth

Corbyn leaves Ukip an open goal, and they miss it

Jeremy Corbyn is taking Labour ever further away from its traditional working class voters in the north and the midlands. As I say in The Sun today, the party now has a leader who didn’t sing the national anthem at St Paul’s, a shadow Chancellor who has praised the IRA, a shadow Home Secretary who thinks promising ‘controls on immigration’ is shameful and a shadow Foreign Secretary who sneers at those who fly the English flag. This presents Ukip with an open goal and a chance to do to Labour in the north and the midlands what the SNP did to in Scotland following the independence referendum. Indeed, half of

Charles Moore Charles Moore

Theresa May's plain style is a blessed relief

Mrs May’s plain style may well come to irritate people in a few months, but just now it is extremely popular. The lack of glamour, soundbites, smart clothes, and ministerial overclaiming is a blessed relief. I can’t pretend that I find Mrs May an endearing figure, but when she said in her speech that Britain should not go round saying ‘We are punching above our weight’ (a phrase beloved of the Foreign Office), I almost wanted to hug her. There isn’t even much party knockabout. In the old days, any speech which made some pathetic jibe against ‘the brothers last week in Blackpool’ could be guaranteed laughter and applause. Now

Friday

Tom Goodenough

'Submission not unity': Labour MPs react to Corbyn's reshuffle

Jeremy Corbyn’s reshuffle is a clear show of intent. Having won re-election as Labour leader, Corbyn is shoring up his authority and sending out a message to critics by ousting some of those who may have helped placate the Parliamentary Labour party. Unsurprisingly, his ongoing reshuffle isn’t going down well with everyone. Labour MP Tom Blenkinsop had this to say about the changes at the top: https://twitter.com/TomBlenkinsop/status/784080234077380610 Labour MP Barry Sheerman also appeared to suggest he thought Corbyn was asserting his power rather than reaching out with his reshuffle: Tweets by BBCr4today But while there were Labour MPs left unhappy with the reshuffle, not many chose to stick their heads above the parapet and openly criticise

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Corbyn tightens his grip

Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow Cabinet reshuffle is all about strengthening, and demonstrating, his control over the party. Jonathan Ashworth, a Corbyn-sceptic, has lost his place on the party’s National Executive Committee and is replaced by Corbyn backer Kate Osamor. The word in Westminster is that Ashworth was told he could take shadow Health and lose his seat on the NEC, or reject it and lose it anyway. Ashworth made the deal. In an email to Labour MPs, the chair of the Parliamentary Labour Party John Cryer makes clear that the leader’s office started the reshuffle while talks on shadow Cabinet elections were still ongoing. Cryer complains that ‘the party leadership did not

Steerpike Steerpike

Guardian fails its own 'traingate' investigation

Oh dear. After the Guardian ran a story claiming Jeremy Corbyn was unable to find a seat on a Virgin train journey, a media storm shortly ensued when the train company responded by releasing CCTV footage to the contrary. Since then, it’s been revealed that the freelancer behind the story was actually a campaigning Corbynista who wasn’t even present on the train journey. So, why did the Grauniad publish the story in the first place? Happily — if a tad too late — hacks at the paper have been asking themselves just this of late. Following an investigation into the error, the paper has published its findings — and they don’t make for pretty

Thursday

Peter Jones

Augustus vs Jeremy Corbyn

Jeremy Corbyn has been re-elected leader of the Labour party not by MPs but by his teenage ‘fans’ in Momentum. So what does Corbyn need to do when he wins power? Follow the example of the emperor Augustus, that’s what. When Rome was a republic, its monuments and military banners proclaimed it as SPQR — Senatus Populusque Romanus, a combination of the senate, mostly consisting of Rome’s elite families, and the people. The Greek historian Polybius greatly admired its clever balancing of powers between senate, people and office-holders. In the course of the 1st century BC, this system collapsed in bloody civil war. From that final conflict in 31 BC

Steerpike Steerpike

Jeremy Corbyn's shadow cabinet brag fails to ring true

As Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet reshuffle rattles on, it seems all that power is going to his head. The Labour leader has taken to Twitter to congratulate himself on appointing Diane Abbott and Emily Thornberry to the roles of shadow home secretary and shadow foreign secretary. Corbyn concludes that he is ‘proud’ that two of the three ‘great offices of state are, for the first time ever, filled by women’. However, Mr S suspects that Corbyn would do well to rephrase. After all, a shadow position cannot be called a ‘great office of state’. Meanwhile the Conservatives continue to come out on top in the gender equality battle with a woman not only