Tonight Martin Freeman will take on a starring role in the latest Labour election broadcast. In the short film, the Sherlock actor says that for him ‘there’s only once choice’ and that’s Labour. Alas for Labour, that hasn’t always strictly been the case.
Mr S recalls the 2001 general election during which Freeman voted not for Labour, but instead for Arthur Scargill’s Socialist Labour party. At the time, Scargill’s party pledged to leave the EU, create a four-day working week, abolish the monarchy and axe the House of Lords if they took power. Then in 2005, Freeman said he would rather abstain from voting than vote for Tony Blair’s Labour in the general election:
‘I don’t know that I am going to vote this time and I would’ve found that unthinkable even three years ago. In 2001, I voted Socialist Labour. I certainly couldn’t vote for Tony Blair.’
Freeman’s support of the Socialist party, which Scargill formed out of anger that Labour ‘abandoned any pretence of being a socialist party,’ comes at an awkward time for Miliband.
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