It was not the acceptance speech he could have anticipated making when the campaign for the Labour leadership began many months ago, but it was one Keir Starmer used to define the type of leader he would be during the pandemic, and beyond. Recorded before he was confirmed as Jeremy Corbyn’s successor, Starmer spent most
When he was elected Labour leader on 12 September 2015 opinion was uniquely divided as to what impact Jeremy Corbyn would have on his party. Critics looked to his far-left politics and predicted disaster, believing Corbyn would repel millions of former Labour voters who had just re-elected a Conservative government committed to austerity; supporters believed his
Labour chairman Ian Lavery has expressed hope that the coronavirus crisis could provide his party with a ‘great opportunity’. Lavery’s comments have been attacked for being in desperately poor taste. For on one reading, here was a leading Labour figure sounding upbeat over how his party could take political advantage of a global pandemic. The
Tony Blair is at it again. With Labour members currently pondering who should replace Jeremy Corbyn, the party’s most electorally successful living leader once more decided to give them the benefit of his experience, whether they wanted it or not. This time it took the form of a history lesson: to mark the party’s 120th
Richard Burgon is not going to be Labour’s next deputy leader. Burgon trails the favourite Angela Rayner by some 42 points, according to the latest YouGov poll. While Rayner has been nominated by 363 constituency parties, Burgon is backed by just 75. This places him third, behind Dawn Butler, in the race to become number
This week every contender for the Labour leadership and deputy leadership signed up to a series of pledges issued by the pressure group We Own It, an organisation established in 2013 to campaign against privatisation and in favour of what it calls ‘21st century public ownership’. The pledges repeat many of the promises made in
Labour is currently all at sea over class – and at risk of drowning. For a party whose members imagine themselves to be the only legitimate representatives of working people the last election has provoked an existential crisis. George Orwell once said Britain is ‘the most class-ridden society under the sun’. That may no longer
Rebecca Long-Bailey denies she is the ‘Continuity Cobynism’ candidate in Labour’s leadership election. Her public statements suggest otherwise. Having given Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership a remarkable 10/10, Long-Bailey proposes to double down on the party’s 2019 manifesto commitments and simply present them in a new way. At least members know what they’re getting with a Long-Bailey
Keir Starmer has been described as a ‘moral leftwinger’. He certainly liberally peppered his leadership campaign launch speech with references to Labour’s ethical correctness, describing his campaign as a ‘moral fight against poverty, inequality and injustice’. It is understandable why Starmer praised Labour members’ collective moral superiority: he needs their votes. In doing so, Starmer
As Labour prepares to say goodbye to Jeremy Corbyn, if not yet ‘Corbynism’, it is possible to put his time as party leader into perspective. Initially hailed as marking a break with the ‘centrist’ status quo and a response to grass-roots radicalism provoked by austerity, Corbyn’s tenure as Labour leader actually fits a pattern of
I initially misread the reaction of Labour’s leading Corbynites and social media outriders to the party’s most cataclysmic defeat since 1935. I thought they were arguing Labour lost because of Brexit; that Jeremy Corbyn’s unpopularity was purely due to media vilification; and its manifesto evoked only a positive response on the doorstep simply because they
In the immediate aftermath of an election, its meaning is established. Once this is fixed, it is almost impossible to shift. There are plenty of such mythical explanations for defeat. Most famously, in 1959 Hugh Gaitskell and his supporters claimed Labour had lost its third election in a row because of the party’s association with
During his last days as manager of Manchester United it was widely thought that whoever came after Sir Alex Ferguson would have an impossible job. The same might be said of Jeremy Corbyn’s successor as Labour leader. For while Sir Alex won every trophy in club football and Corbyn has won nothing at all there
Jeremy Corbyn has given up on winning this election and is currently struggling to ensure that on 12 December Boris Johnson will be denied a Commons majority. Last week Labour’s campaign strategy switched from trying to win seats to trying not to lose them, reflecting just how badly things are going. With polling day just
Unless Jeremy Corbyn defies the odds, it looks unlikely that the Labour leader will become prime minister come 13 December. So what might happen if Corbyn loses for a second time? Will he try to cling on? Is there life for Labour after Corbyn? Before the campaign began, John McDonnell conceded Corbyn could not remain
According to a YouGov poll 45 per cent of Britons believe today’s party leaders are worse than any of their predecessors in history. The survey fits neatly into the dominant narrative of the 2019 election, where ‘Don’t Know’ is the preferred option of prime minister for one third of the UK, only 14 per cent of the
To excited cheers, Angela Rayner last week promised Labour supporters that a Jeremy Corbyn-led government ‘would knock the socks off’ the one led by Clement Attlee. Given Attlee oversaw the creation of the NHS and the nationalisation of 20 per cent of the economy while establishing a universalist welfare state, not to mention building nearly
Is Jeremy Corbyn a democrat? With Labour now promising a ‘democratic revolution’ this has become a critical question. We can only judge Corbyn on his record as Labour leader and that suggests his rhetoric of radical empowerment conceals a traditional politician’s desire to hold on to the levers of power. Corbyn won’t like it, but
In one of Boris Johnson’s opening salvoes of the 2019 campaign he said of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party: ‘they detest the profit motive so viscerally…they point their fingers at individuals with a relish and a vindictiveness not seen since Stalin persecuted the kulaks.’ Boris Johnson is no Winston Churchill. But in making that claim, the
On election night on 10 October 1974, the BBC broadcast a special episode of The Clangers, a children’s animated television series. The episode, ‘Vote for Froglet’, satirised the politics of the day, showing the gentle mouse-like Clangers rejecting a divisive two-party politics, essentially saying: ‘Sod off! The whole thing is a waste of everybody’s time!’ No two historical
