Jeremy corbyn

This month saw the release of Rosa Prince’s biography of Jeremy Corbyn. While Corbyn refused to assist the former Daily Telegraph hack with the unauthorised tome, Prince spoke to a number of his close friends and family for Comrade Corbyn. While the book depicts Corbyn as a kind hard-working man, it also includes a number of previously unpublished stories including the claim that Corbyn ‘showed off‘ a naked Diane Abbott to his Labour friends back in his youth. However, Corbyn has not taken kindly to Prince’s work. In an interview with the Islington Tribune, Corbyn has hit out at the author, accusing her of a lack of courtesy: ‘I’m pleased she notes my

When Seumas Milne — the Guardian associate editor and columnist — was hired as Jeremy Corbyn’s director of communications, Labour released a statement in which they made it clear that Milne would remain on ‘indefinite leave’ from the paper while he worked for the party. The arrangement raised eyebrows at the paper and proved to be a point of contention as Milne has made it clear that he takes issue with the Guardian‘s political coverage. Now it appears that things are coming to a head. The Times reports that senior executives at the Guardian are to urge Milne to step down from his role. They want him to take voluntary redundancy, as they seek to make 100 journalists redundant in

‘Anybody here got any student debt?’ asks Bernie Sanders halfway through his speech at a rally in a small university on Monday. He then starts conducting a fake auction. ‘What are some of the numbers you got? You? 35,000. You? 55,000? Who else? A young lady here… 100,000 dollars. You win! I don’t know what you win, but you win!’ The students all hoot and chant. ‘Bernie! Bernie! Bernie!’ Sanders cracks an avuncular smile, then starts talking again about how rich the rich are. It’s hard not to like Sanders. It’s hard not to ‘Feel the Bern’, as the mantra goes. He is 74 years old, and angry at the

Housing is Jeremy Corbyn’s second favourite subject (after drainage lids). Back in the 1970s the grateful proletariat hailed his long years of service as Commissar For Council Accommodation in the People’s Republic of Haringey. At his retirement, chanting school-girls tied garlands of lilies around his brows and presented him with a commemorative Rent Book in a frame. Marching bands played. Fireworks fizzed and thundered. Private landlords were burned in effigy. What Corbyn learned from his housing career was to grind his enemies into submission with tedious blasts of numbers. But Cameron likes a good statistic himself and when Corbyn accused the government of building one new council house for every

Emily Thornberry has not had an easy few weeks since her appointment as shadow defence secretary last month. On Monday she received a frosty reception at a meeting of the PLP, when Labour MPs heckled her as she discussed the party’s Trident policy. With members of her own party now against her, perhaps it’s only natural that she has sought counsel elsewhere. The Sun reports that Thornberry’s assistant contacted Nicholas Soames to ask if the Tory grandee would meet her so she could hear ‘any insights’ Soames has to offer on Labour’s defence review. Alas, Soames will not be taking Thornberry up on the offer anytime soon. It turns out that Winston Churchill’s grandson is not

Since Jeremy Corbyn was elected Labour leader, the party have had a fair few run-ins with dictators of the past. After John McDonnell quoted Chairman Mao during the budget, Corbyn then cited Enver Hoxha at the Labour Christmas party — while his director of comms Seumas Milne has questioned just how many deaths Stalin actually brought about. Happily some prominent Labour members are happy to talk about the shortcomings of such dictators. In an interview with The Rake, Martin Freeman — who starred in Labour’s election broadcast when Ed Miliband was leader — says it’s unfair to call all Tories ‘evil’, as the left has been responsible for more deaths in recent

Although Jeremy Corbyn has only been Labour leader since September, there has been much talk from various fractions of the party about who might succeed him. While many Blairites hope someone like Dan Jarvis or Chuka Umunna will be next, Ken Livingstone has now offered his prediction. In an interview with Sam Delaney — on Russia Today — the former Mayor of London says that if Corbyn were killed tomorrow, it would be John McDonnell who would become Labour leader: ‘If Jeremy was pushed under a bus being driven by Boris Johnson, it would all rally behind John McDonnell. Because John, like Jeremy, like me, he’s been in this game for 45 years. [He’s]

The referendum is slowly (very slowly) breaking up Cameron’s cabinet. It’s put him in a weird mood. Yesterday he was striding about in shirt-sleeves like a bogus realtor selling flats on the moon. At PMQs today he was calmer and prepared for some rough weather. It failed to materialise. Jez We Can (Do a U-turn on Europe) didn’t want to discuss the In-Out decision in case viewers spotted that his love of Brussels is a mere summer crush dating from his election as Labour boss. Previously he was a committed Europe-nobbler. With his mentor, Tony Benn, he used to trudge along to every anti-EU meeting available. Alas, no one noticed.