Why haven’t some Labour MPs ever met Jeremy Corbyn? Mr Steerpike picks up on the discussion between former Miliband aide Anna Yearley, and MPs Barbara Keeley and Lucy Powell about his non-attendance at PLP meetings and the fact that Powell has ‘never, ever met or spoken to him’. This is odd: Corbyn has been a member since 1983 and has managed to find time to befriend Ukip’s Douglas Carswell, who cheerily offered to introduce Yearley to Corbyn in the tearooms at some point.
It’s not unusual, though: on Sunday night Tory backbencher Mark Field was singing the praises of the friendly Corbyn on Westminster Hour. But when I was discussing Corbyn’s appeal with a Labour frontbencher whose judgement I’ve always trusted, he looked rather dubious when I said I thought he was a decent and pleasant man, and said ‘well, the only thing Jeremy said he’d do for me, he then didn’t do.’
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