Jeremy corbyn

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘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: Labour MP Barry Sheerman also appeared to suggest he thought Corbyn was asserting his power rather than reaching out with his reshuffle: But while there were Labour MPs left unhappy with the reshuffle, not many chose to stick their heads above the parapet and openly criticise Corbyn. Instead, most of

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

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

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

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

James Forsyth

Jeremy Corbyn’s London-centric shadow cabinet

Jeremy Corbyn has sacked the Labour chief whip Rosie Winterton in his shadow cabinet reshuffle. Winterton was attempting to broker a deal that would see a shadow cabinet elections return, allowing some of those who resigned from the front bench to return with some dignity intact. Her sacking indicates that Corbyn doesn’t want to compromise on this. Winterton’s dismissal also suggests that Corbyn feels emboldened by his re-election, and is now even less interested in placating the Parliamentary Labour Party. Diane Abbott has also been made shadow home secretary. This will mean that there are Corbynites in the three major shadow cabinet positions for the first time—chancellor, foreign and home. But

Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet reshuffle in full

Jeremy Corbyn has begun a shadow cabinet reshuffle. Follow the details here. IN: Nick Brown has been appointed as Winterton’s successor. A former Gordon Brown loyalist, the MP for Newcastle upon Tyne East will be responsible for instilling discipline in the increasingly divided party. On accepting the role, Brown said he hoped to ‘play a constructive role in providing the strongest possible opposition to this Tory government’. Shami Chakrabarti has been appointed to the post of shadow attorney general. The newly appointed peer says ‘it is an enormous privilege to take up the post of Shadow Attorney General in Jeremy Corbyn’s new team. I hope to follow in a great tradition

Theresa May’s love of class politics shows she’s no heir to Blair

One of the professional drawbacks of coming from Scotland and then moving to London is that I don’t really know an awful lot about England. True, I spent a few years in East Anglia on my way south, but it was a particular part of East Anglia that possibly has rather more dreaming Gothic spires, rusted bicycles and robotics labs than the norm, so I’m not sure it was wholly representative. Still, I know the cities. I have spent enough time in Birmingham, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham and Sheffield, say, to know that they are not so terribly different from Glasgow, Aberdeen, Inverness or even the bits of Edinburgh without the

Paul Mason vs the MSM

With Seumas Milne rumoured to be on the way out, Jeremy Corbyn could soon be on the prowl for a new Director of Communications. Although Paul Mason has denied that he is interested in the job, he is still a favourite to join the Leader’s Office. So, with that in mind, Mr S was curious to hear his views on Fleet Street and the Mainstream Media (better known as MSM among Corbynites) at a Momentum talk on ‘radical media’. It turns out that the former Newsnight economics editor isn’t such a fan. While he promised to ‘try and be strained in my vitriol and personal views’ in the discussion, Mason went on to say