jeremy corbyn Archives

Thursday

1 Oct 2015

Steerpike

Don’t kill yourself over Jeremy Corbyn – yet, Austin Mitchell tells Labour members

After Jeremy Corbyn opted to use a speech which dated back to the eighties at this year’s Labour conference, commentariats and party members alike were quick to question whether the left-wing messiah was really offering the ‘straight talking’ politics he promised. Happily Austin Mitchell, the outspoken former Labour MP, has come to Corbyn’s defence. Writing on his personal blog, Mitchell says — with trademark tact — that party members should not ‘commit suicide or take a pick axe to Corbyn’s head’ when it comes to the state of the party. Instead, he says that rather than any leadership issues, the problem lies with the pesky media: ‘Labour Party members wondering if they should commit suicide now

James Forsyth

Is it all over for Boris?

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/boris-nickyandthetoryleadership/media.mp3″ title=”Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth discuss who could be the next Tory leader” startat=38] Listen [/audioplayer]Five months ago, allies of Boris Johnson were ready to launch his bid to become leader of the Conservative party. The election was imminent and even David Cameron was fretting that the Tories were going to lose. A sympathetic pollster had prepared the numbers that made the post-defeat case for Boris: he extended the Tories’ reach, and a party that had failed to gain a majority for 23 years desperately needed a greater reach. There was a policy agenda ready to magnify this appeal, too: compassionate conservatism, based around adopting the Living Wage. Boris

Matthew Parris

These days, compassion is for hacks and Lib Dems

There’s a hard, hard mood out there among the public and I don’t think our newspapers get it at all. Could it be that the general populace are now more cynical than their journalists? At Tim Farron’s closing speech to his Liberal Democrat conference in Bournemouth last week, I sat through nearly an hour of one of the biggest cartloads of sanctimonious tosh it’s been my fate to endure in decades. And who do you suppose was lapping this up as avidly as any misty-eyed Lib Dem conference-goer? The hardened hacks, the sketchwriters, analysts and reporters. The press are old-fashioned: they love this emotional stuff. But the 21st-century public have

Rod Liddle

At least these rioters hate the right people

I was unable to join the violent protests held by Class War at the Cereal Killer Café in London last week because I had to stay at home to supervise our gardener. Yes — I know what you’re about to say. It is indeed ridiculous that one should have to stand over workmen to ensure that they are doing a decent job. But there is a patch of lawn towards the rear of our grounds which the blighters always skimp on, believing that it is too far from the house for us to notice. So I stand down there, with a cheerfully expectant expression, as the surly little man goes

Wednesday

30 Sep 2015

Isabel Hardman

Corbyn’s Trident comments spark end-of-conference row in Labour

Jeremy Corbyn has really pushed the button on the tensions in his party over Trident renewal. The Labour leader insists that he is just being honest when he says that he would never use nuclear weapons. But what he has done is to put his party in an impossible position. Either it respects his huge mandate and makes scrapping Britain’s nuclear deterrent official policy. Or else it votes to force the resignation of the leader. At first glance, this sounds rather confusing, and Corbyn’s team and John McDonnell have been spinning that Jeremy is just being honest about a long-held personal position. Why is this the implication of a man

Allan Mallinson

Corbyn has said he would never use our nukes. What kind of deterrent is that?

When pushed this morning by Today presenter Sarah Montague on whether there would be any circumstances that he would use the nuclear option, Jeremy Corbyn said: ‘No.’ In other words, Britain under his premiership would no longer have a nuclear deterrent. Deterrence requires not just the capability to strike – a capability that cannot be pre-emptively neutralised or destroyed (hence the need for submarine-launched weapons) – but also the will to use it. Or at least the question-mark in the mind of a would-be aggressor. We’ve been here before. The Rt Hon Jim Hacker (Yes, Prime Minister) wasn’t as certain as Jeremy Corbyn that he wouldn’t use Trident, but he

James Forsyth

Next year’s Labour conference will be even more Corbynite

Sitting in the hall during Jeremy Corbyn’s speech, one couldn’t help but be struck by how much the audience agreed with what he is saying. Corbyn was speaking to them, and they loved it. Now, as long as the Labour activists represented in that hall think Corbyn is their man then it will be almost impossible for the Parliamentary Labour Party to remove him. This week, Corbyn has done little to reach out to the country. But he has consolidated his position in the party. In casual conversations, the date at which people think a coup could be launched against him keeps slipping back. Next year, I suspect that Labour’s

Sebastian Payne

Podcast special: Labour conference review

Labour’s conference is rolling to a close today and it hasn’t been the explosive event some predicted it might be. In this View from 22 special, Isabel Hardman, James Forsyth and I discuss the highs and lows of the past days in Brighton and the impact it has had on the party. How big was the divide between the Corbyn-friendly activists and the MPs and politicos? And will next year’s conference see the promised fireworks? You can subscribe to our View from 22 political specials through iTunes and have it delivered to your computer every week, or you can use the player below:

Steerpike

Watch: Eamonn Holmes’s awkward football exchange with Jeremy Corbyn

After Jeremy Corbyn gave his conference speech yesterday, the media-shy Labour leader has undertaken a publicity blitz this morning. While his day got off to an okay start on the Today programme, things quickly went downhill with an appearance on Sky News. Eamonn Holmes began the interview by heaping praise on Corbyn, likening him to a religious figure. He then decided to focus on football — and Corbyn’s love of Arsenal: ‘Every young lad has a dream of appearing in the FA cup final, and scoring the winning goal, and I was looking at you and the love there was for you in the room, and you were basking in it –

Isabel Hardman

Jeremy Corbyn: I wouldn’t use nuclear weapons anyway

Jeremy Corbyn doesn’t want nuclear weapons. We all know that. We also know that because he has a huge mandate (a phrase bandied about so much at this conference that it’s starting to feel like a refrain in Are You Being Served?), he’s keen to turn his views into official party policy on this area at least. But we now also know that if his party determined that it would remain committed to Trident, and if Jeremy Corbyn were Prime Minister, he wouldn’t ever use his weapons anyway. Which makes it entirely pointless to fund them at all. On the Today programme, the new Labour leader was asked if he

Steerpike

Do as I say (not as I do): a Guardian Corbynista lectures Blairites

The Fabian Society’s question time event at Labour party conference made for a lively debate. Tony Blair’s former staffer John McTernan joined Tim Montgomerie, Labour’s Kate Green and the Guardian‘s Ellie Mae O’Hagan to discuss the future of the Labour party now Jeremy Corbyn is leader. With McTernan criticising Corbyn for a leader’s speech which ‘gave no indication’ that the party had just lost an election, it fell on O’Hagan — who works for the Centre of Labour and Social Studies — to fight Corbyn’s corner. To kick her argument off, the Guardian writer — and Corbyn champion — explained that after the election result she had realised that in order for Labour

Steerpike

Labour conference 2015, in pictures

After four days of ‘straight talking‘ politics in Brighton, Jeremy Corbyn’s first conference as Labour leader draws to a close today. With this year’s conference bringing together a mix of Corbynistas, Milifans and Blairites, Mr S has assembled a selection of photos showing some of the slightly strange elements of this year’s conference:

Tuesday

29 Sep 2015

Steerpike

John McTernan: Jeremy Corbyn’s speech gaffe shows he isn’t who he says he is

Jeremy Corbyn has come under increased scrutiny today after Mr S’s colleague Alex Massie revealed that parts of his conference speech were taken from a four-year old reject speech by the writer Richard Heller. The Labour press office claim that their straight talking leader approached Heller ‘because JC thought some of his material captured what he wanted to say’. However, given that Heller suggested Ed Miliband use the speech four years ago, it hardly epitomises Corbyn’s so-called ‘new kind of politics’. With the party playing the incident down, one Labour member is at least feeling more forthcoming. Speaking at the Fabian Society’s ‘week in review’ event, John McTernan — Tony Blair’s former director of political

Isabel Hardman

Corbyn’s tougher line on nuclear weapons could become a resigning issue for Shadow Cabinet

Jeremy Corbyn’s aim at this conference has been to keep the Labour party on an even keel. But there was one line in his speech that has unsettled some frontbenchers. He said this about Trident: ‘Today we face very different threats from the time of the Cold War which ended thirty years ago. That’s why I have asked our Shadow Defence Secretary, Maria Eagle, to lead a debate and review about how we deliver that strong, modern effective protection for the people of Britain. I’ve made my own position on one issue clear. And I believe I have a mandate from my election on it. I don’t believe £100 billion

Lloyd Evans

Sketch: Corbyn’s speech proved he is as cunning as Blair

He looked bored. He looked dishevelled. His half-knotted crimson tie sagged disconsolately beneath his bearded throat. The drab jacket seemed as beige as ever. Corbyn spoke to the Labour conference looking like an embarrassed scout-master thanking his colleagues for a surprise party he didn’t want. ‘Any chance we could start the speech?’ he asked as the crowed clapped and cheered him. He began in ever-so-humble mode by saying how grateful he was ‘to be invited’ to address the conference. And he warmly thanked the three rival candidates he had trounced in the leadership election. He sounded as if they’d trounced him. The hesitant, informal style is so effective it looks

Alex Massie

Exclusive: ‘unspun’ Jeremy Corbyn used an old speech rejected by Miliband

On its own terms, I imagine Jeremy Corbyn’s speech to the Labour conference can be considered tolerably acceptable. Much of it, after all, consisted of time-served bromides with which almost no-one could reasonably disagree. It was a Marx and apple-pie speech that omitted most of Marx. And who dislikes pie? Nevertheless, what was new was not good and what was good was not new. Much of it, actually, was not new at all. I can disclose that a significant chunk of Corbyn’s speech was, in its essentials, written many years ago. Not by Corbyn, of course, but by the writer Richard Heller. Mr Heller (with whom I should say I have

Isabel Hardman

Labour activists loved Jeremy Corbyn’s speech. But will voters?

Jeremy Corbyn’s speech was excellent. It was passionate, full of campaigning zeal, focused on issues that the MP has campaigned on for years, and well-received in the hall. The new Labour leader came across as warm, principled, personable, fun. He was introduced in a lovely, low key fashion by a member of his own constituency party, whose own life story summed up his own values. He opened with jokes about the media claiming that he was keen for an asteroid to destroy the earth (more on this and his opposition to PIGEON BOMBS here), and these went down well – both amongst the activists and the media sitting in the

Sebastian Payne

Podcast special: Jeremy Corbyn’s conference speech

Jeremy Corbyn has just delivered his first conference speech as Labour leader. Fraser Nelson, James Forsyth, Isabel Hardman and I discuss the address in this View from 22 special — looking at his delivery, the reaction in the hall, who it was meant to appeal to and whether it will change Corbyn’s standing with the general public. You can subscribe to the View from 22 through iTunes and have it delivered to your computer every week, or you can use the player below:

Steerpike

Chuka his toys out of the pram? Umunna misses Corbyn’s speech

As Jeremy Corbyn made his speech to conference, Labour’s new frontbench did their best to put on a united front on the front row. As for the frontbenchers of Labour’s past? Well, it could hardly be described as a show of solidarity. Both Chuka Umunna and Tristram Hunt were nowhere to be seen at the speech, with ITV’s Chris Ship reporting that they had already left Brighton on a train: Somewhere between Brighton & London Victoria stations is a train carriage with @ChukaUmunna @TristramHuntMP & @MaryCreaghMP escaping #Lab15 — Chris Ship (@chrisshipitv) September 29, 2015 While Hunt did at least tweet supportive messages to Corbyn during the speech, Umunna has maintained a radio silence. On top of failing

The Spectator

Jeremy Corbyn’s speech to Labour conference – full audio and full text

Jeremy Corbyn has just finished delivering his speech at Labour’s annual conference. The audio can be listened to here: Friends, thank you so much for that incredible welcome and Rohit, thank you so much for that incredible welcome. Rohit, thank you so much for the way you introduced me and the way our family and you have contributed so much to our community. That was absolutely brilliant. Thank you very much. I am truly delighted to be invited to make this speech today, because for the past two weeks, as you’ve probably known I’ve had a very easy, relaxing time. Hardly anything of any importance at all has happened to me.