Labour party

Daily they drop into my email account — alongside the more obviously useful stuff about how I might elongate my penis or ensure it performs with greater fortitude than at present, and the charitable offers from women who live ‘nearby your house, Roderick’ and apparently wish to test whether or not those previous solicitations I mentioned have been acceded to with success. Alongside all that stuff are the fecund exhortations from a bunch of online campaigning organisations. Click democracy, a sort of spastic form of activism whereby you stick it to da man simply by pressing a button. They come, these missives, from the likes of Change.org and 38 Degrees. Sometimes

Chuka Umunna’s call for Labourites to unite around their new leader and show ‘solidarity’ does show a growing acceptance that Jeremy Corbyn is on the brink of being installed as the party’s new chief in just ten days’ time. But it also shows that the Blairites in the party are finally starting to come up with a plan for dealing with the rise of the hard left. Labour’s centrist modernisers have spent the summer scratching their heads at the Corbyn phenomenon, which they hadn’t predicted at all – indeed, I was initially briefed by one of their number that ‘we will get hundreds of thousands of new supporters. Social media

Who has the best chance of beating Jeremy Corbyn: Andy Burnham or Yvette Cooper? The Burnham and Cooper camps are vying to be the clear ‘Anyone But Corbyn’ candidate, and trying to grab as much of the low-hanging ‘soft’ Corbyn vote as possible before the ballot closes on 10 September. Burnham is most blatant in his adoption of the ABC strategy. For example, in an op-ed for the Independent today, he says ‘I believe it has come down to a straight choice between Jeremy Corbyn and myself’ and outlined five policy areas he will pursue if elected leader to build a ‘bolder, more principled Labour party’. On housing, Burnham said he will oppose the extension of

The silly season is supposed to end tomorrow. September sidles in and normality replaces August’s frivolity. The reality of winter will be with us soon enough, too. That, at any rate, is the theory but it seems, on both sides of the Atlantic, that sillyness is likely to last for some time yet. There’s the twin risings of Donald Trump and Jeremy Corbyn, for instance. It might initially seem as though they have little in common but a more penetrating gaze at their improbable ascent to prominence discerns certain commonalities. Trump is the American Corbyn and Corbyn the British Trump. The difference, of course, is significant. Trump won’t win the Republican

It’s not entirely surprising that Tony Blair fancied one last chance to plead with his party not to elect Jeremy Corbyn as leader. And it’s not particularly surprising that his piece in today’s Observer is attracting exactly the sort of reaction he expected. But what is surprising is not just the former Prime Minister’s rather sarcastic tone – he says that ‘someone else said to me: “If you’re writing something again, don’t blah on about winning elections; it really offends them.” It would actually be quite funny if it weren’t tragic.’ – but that he’s not really pleading with his party not to elect Jeremy Corbyn at all. Of course,

It’s fair to say that the appointment of Ed Miliband’s ex-campaign director Spencer Livermore to the House of Lords hasn’t gone down well in Labour circles. Harriet Harman was said to be in a battle to get a similar honour for her own press chief Ayesha Hazarika if Livermore got one, but her name was absent from yesterday’s Dissolution Peerages. Now word reaches Steerpike that party members are questioning what exactly Livermore — who also worked on Gordon Brown’s election-that-never-was back in 2007 — is being rewarded for. While Mr S is yet to learn the answer, it is fair to rule out his election judgment. On polling day, Livermore wrote a

Northerners are easy to stereotype: working class, beer, flat caps, Labour, trade unions and football. In the same way all southerners aren’t stuck-up opera-goers and every Scot isn’t a miserly chip-guzzler, this portrait of a typical northerner is insultingly inaccurate — but it is one that some love to propagate. One of those people happens to be Andy Burnham, who is running for Labour leader. As a northerner, I’m not sure that I can take much more of his schtick. It is frustrating to listen to how much of his leadership has been about being northern. Sure, Liz Kendall frequently namedrops her Watford upbringing but Burnham’s whole persona is based on his Liverpudlian

Andy Burham’s rally this evening had only one similarity with Jeremy Corbyn’s last week: it was held in a place of worship. At the St Pancras Parish Church in London, close to 1,000 people turned out to hear Burnham and take part in a Q&A session. There was no socialist magician, folk singer or rock band — just a few politicians and a lectern. It was a throwback to how Labour politics was done before Corbynmania blew onto the scene. Keir Starmer, the local Labour MP, opened proceedings by explaining his desire to win in 2020 and party unity were his reasons for backing Burnham. John Prescott was wheeled out next in his