Jeremy corbyn

Monday

Charles Moore

There’s nothing hip about Jeremy Corbyn’s beard

Mr Corbyn has a beard. If he becomes leader, he will be the first bearded leader of any main party since Keir Hardie. The beard as a fashion item is now back, generally in shaped and even waxed form. But Mr Corbyn’s one owes nothing to fashion. It is a 1960s political beard, already obsolete when he first brought it into the House of Commons in 1983. Like Lord Hailsham who, as Mrs Thatcher’s Lord Chancellor, continued to wear a bowler hat long after it had disappeared from everything but hunt puppy shows, Orange parades and A Clockwork Orange, Mr Corbyn is undaunted by the passage of time. I must try not

Steerpike Steerpike

The Guardian launches inquiry into Corbyn coverage: ‘worse than reporting of Vietnam war’

It’s only lunchtime but the Guardian may have already reached ‘peak Guardian’ for the day. The paper has published an article penned by Chris Elliott chronicling an in-house investigation into their coverage of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour leadership bid. They decided to do this after a number of Corbynistas complained that the left-wing paper had shown bias against Corbyn, with one reader going so far as to claim that their reporting of his leadership bid was worse than the paper’s coverage of the Vietnam war: ‘I’ve been a regular reader of the Guardian (Manchester Guardian as was) since 1958. Despite the low point reached in the 60s when you supported the US war in Vietnam

Sebastian Payne

Chris Leslie stands up to ‘Corbynomics’ — other should follow his example

Finally, someone in Labour is tearing apart Jeremy Corbyn’s ideas. Overtly criticising what Corbyn stands for is something the leadership candidates have been reluctant to do. You can see why: his popularity with the party’s grassroots could result in a backlash. Therefore, it’s been left to poor old Chris Leslie, Labour’s shadow chancellor, to point out that a party promoting ‘Corbynomics’ is not going to help ordinary folks. On the Today programme, Leslie said: ‘This is a fork in the road for the Labour party. On 12 September we will know what the fate is of the progressive left of centre and there are millions of people whose living standards, whose working conditions depend on

Saturday

Sebastian Payne

Why George Galloway won’t be rejoining Labour anytime soon

George Galloway has announced that he would like to return to the Labour party if Jeremy Corbyn is elected leader. The former Respect MP for Bradford West sees Corbyn as a comrade in arms and would feel at home alongside him. He told LBC this week: ‘I think if Jeremy were to win everyone on the left would rejoin the Labour party. That’s the part of the problem that saw us part solved. I’ve always been a Labour man I consider myself real Labour. I’ve never been a Marxist or a Trotskyist or any other kind of -ist other than a Labour-ist.’ And asked if he would contemplate a  return to the Labour

Friday

Steerpike

Coffee Shots: Jeremy Corbyn, the ‘British Obama’

Ahead of the election, Ed Miliband’s senior advisor David Axelrod was asked if the Labour politician had as much potential to succeed as his former client Barack Obama. His reply? ‘I think Obama’s a once-in-a-lifetime candidate.’ However, could Labour leadership hopeful Jeremy Corbyn be the candidate to make it two-in-a-lifetime? Mr S only asks after the independent radical left magazine Red Pepper have ran a cover with Corbyn pictured in the style of the famous 2008 Barack Obama ‘Hope’ poster: Ladies and gentlemen: the new Obama (apparently) pic.twitter.com/aevY60bfO4 — Tim Montgomerie 🇬🇧 (@montie) July 31, 2015 Still, unless by ‘hope’ they are referring to what Corbyn brings to the Tories, Mr S suspects he still

Steerpike Steerpike

Andy Burnham (finally) wins an endorsement

Although Andy Burnham started out as the frontrunner in the Labour leadership race, according to the latest polls he is now struggling to even remain in second place behind Jeremy Corbyn. What’s more, the unions Burnham hoped would endorse him have in large opted for Corbyn, with Unison this week also choosing to back Jeremy over Andy. However there is still a ray of hope for Burnham. He is at least now beginning to compete with Corbyn when it comes to celebrity fans. David Walliams has come out in support of the leadership hopeful, with the Little Britain star claiming he has known for years that Burnham ought to be Labour leader: I first

Sebastian Payne

Trade unionists are putting themselves on the path to obscurity

Jeremy Corbyn is the trade unions’ favourite candidate for Labour leader. From the more militant folks at Unite to the moderates at Unison, the comrades are buying into ‘Jez we can’. But this is not only about electing their man, some trade unionists are on a greater mission to stamp out to Blairite ‘virus’ from the party. The author of that controversial remark, Dave Ward of the Communication Workers’ Union, defended it on the Today programme this morning (quotes via PoliticsHome): ‘I stand by what I said yesterday, and the virus that I’m referring to is the policies and the approach of the likes of Peter Mandelson, who seem to continually push these

Thursday

Peter Jones

Jeremy Corbyn’s world

Jeremy Corbyn says he is very excited about his campaign to become Labour leader because lots of young people are becoming involved in it, which ‘must be a good thing’. Aristotle (384–322 bc) would have his doubts. In his Art of Rhetoric, Aristotle pinpoints the sorts of thing that can be said on a large number of topics which will encourage your audience to agree with you. One such topic is the character of the young. In general, he says, the young are pleasure-loving, impulsive and optimistic. Of the desires of the body, he says, they are keenest on sex, and powerless against its demands. But since they are keen rather

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 30 July 2015

Obviously when one attends what the papers call ‘cocaine-fuelled orgies’, one expects to find several members of the peerage present, but I must confess that until all this trouble, I had not heard of Lord Sewel, beyond a vague apprehension that he was a misprint rather than a person. I now discover that he is a Blair peer — a specially ignominious category, rather like Lloyd George’s creations. But I still worry that he has ‘resigned’ from the House of Lords. If we continue to think that our second chamber should be unelected, it should be all but impossible to get rid of a peer once appointed. Otherwise, politics being

Sebastian Payne

Podcast: the Osborne supremacy and why Labour’s grassroots don’t matter

George Osborne reigns supreme over Westminster — how did he end up with all this power? On this week’s View from 22 podcast, Isabel Hardman discusses our cover piece on the Chancellor’s dominance with George Parker from the Financial Times. As the de facto deputy Prime Minister, is the Chancellor a shoe in to succeed David Cameron? How has Osborne won over once-sceptical Tory MPs? And how significant was his image makeover? Former Labour adviser John McTernan also discuss whether the modernisers in the Labour are stuck in the past and why the party is falling in love with Jeremy Corbyn. If Corbyn wins the leadership contest, what will the Blairites do next? How long would he last running the party? And

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Another union backs Corbyn as the antidote to a Blairite ‘virus’

Jeremy Corbyn is stormin’ his way through the trade unions affiliated to the Labour party. The Communication Workers’ Union has announced it backs him in the leadership contest, not because it thinks he can win, but because it thinks his victory would drive the Blairites out of the party, and would therefore serve its purpose. This is what the union’s general secretary Dave Ward had to say about the decision: ‘We think that the Labour party needs to be shaken up, and we think that we need to loosen the grip of the Blairite wing of the party, people like Mandelson who in our view have taken this party far

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

If Corbyn becomes PM, I’m blaming you lot

Imagine, for a moment, the following scenario. In 2016 Britain votes narrowly to remain within the European Union, despite the Prime Minister having achieved little in attempting to renegotiate the terms of our membership. The ‘out’ campaign — which was no longer led by a marginal party, Ukip, but by the majority of the parliamentary Labour party, under its new leader Jeremy Corbyn — came mightily close to securing our withdrawal, and thus, as it is put by proponents, our independence. Subsequently, Labour receives the same sort of bounce in the opinion polls as the SNP enjoyed following the equally close independence referendum in Scotland — helped by a continuing crisis in the

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

The agony of Labour’s old-fashioned modernisers

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/theosbornesupremacy/media.mp3″ title=”John McTernan and Isabel Hardman discuss the plight of Labour’s modernisers” startat=837] Listen [/audioplayer]The exhausted Labour leadership contest takes a bucket-and-spade holiday next week, with all four candidates agreeing to an uneasy truce on hustings — but probably not hostilities. It’s clear everyone could do with a bit of a rest, not least because they need time to sit down, scratch their heads and ask how on earth things got to where they are. Jeremy Corbyn, the veteran socialist, is still ahead — and not just in published polls, but in the returns all the campaigns are seeing. With private data putting him far ahead of the next

Wednesday

Charlotte Henry

While Labour panics, the Lib Dems are keeping their cool

After May’s general election, both Labour and the Lib Dems needed a new leader, but the contrast between their leadership elections could not be starker. Labour is in the midst of a full-blown civil war. To outsiders, it appears to be a party in total meltdown, as veteran left-winger Jeremy Corbyn continues to poll ahead of his more mainstream rivals. Meanwhile, the Lib Dems MPs are under new leadership, after the bloodless ascension of Tim Farron, who beat rival Norman Lamb in a relatively good-natured contest. It would be easy to dismiss the leader of eight MPs as insignificant, but it matters profoundly to Lib Dem members who want to

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Unison backs Jeremy Corbyn for Labour leader

The momentum just keeps building behind Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign for Labour leader. This afternoon, Unison has announced it is backing the veteran socialist’s candidacy, with General Secretary Dave Prentis saying: ‘Jeremy Corbyn’s message has resonated with public sector workers who have suffered years of pay freezes, redundancies with too many having to work more for less.’ Prentis points out that ‘today’s decision is a recommendation and our members are of course free to cast their vote as to who they think should lead the Labour Party’. And indeed the view of the union does not translate to all of its members who are affiliated supporters of the Labour party putting

Sebastian Payne

John McTernan: if Corbyn wins the Labour leadership, he should be deposed immediately

John McTernan is a Blairite who is not afraid to speak his mind. On this week’s View from 22 podcast, the former Labour special advisor discusses the state of Labour’s leadership contest with Isabel and me. He believes the right of the party is struggling as it failed to put forward a suitably experienced candidate ‘because David Miliband left the Commons in the last Parliament’: ‘If David had stayed and served in Ed’s shadow cabinet, David would have been the candidate wouldn’t he? There wouldn’t have really been a contest and I think the vagaries of people’s personal career choices has a big impact on where we are.’ McTernan describes the nomination of

Tuesday

Rod Liddle

Jeremy Corbyn won’t destroy Labour. But he might yet destroy the country

Imagine, for a moment, the following scenario. In 2017 Britain votes narrowly to remain within the European Union, despite the Prime Minister having achieved little in attempting to renegotiate the terms of our membership. The ‘out’ campaign — which after 2016 was no longer led by a marginal party, Ukip, but by the majority of the ­parliamentary Labour party, under its new leader Jeremy Corbyn — came mightily close to securing our withdrawal, and thus, as it is put by proponents, our independence. Subsequently, Labour receives the same sort of bounce in the opinion polls as the SNP enjoyed following the equally close independence referendum in Scotland — helped by

Sebastian Payne

What if Jeremy Corbyn wins?

A Jeremy Corbyn victory was once a hilarious joke but now it seems possible, even likely according to some. If the Labour party wakes up on September 13 and the bearded leftie is its new leader, what happens next? There are three likely scenarios. Following Corbyn’s victory, the assumption is that he would attempt to put together a shadow cabinet and Labour would carry on as Her Majesty’s opposition. This will not be an easy task, as many in the Labour MPs have already said they would refuse to serve under him. The first scenario is one where Corbyn manages to put together a team and makes it through the first few turbulent

Steerpike Steerpike

Labour: Derek Hatton’s membership application has been rejected

Last night Derek Hatton claimed that he has successfully rejoined the Labour Party 29 years after they expelled him. Hatton — who joined Labour with the Trotskyist group Militant — boasted about his membership on Newsnight while defending Jeremy Corbyn. ‘In my pocket I’ve got a Labour Party card,’ he said, after tweeting a picture of his card earlier this year: https://twitter.com/DegsyHatton/status/603809448004562944 While he may have the card, Mr S is sorry to report that he doesn’t have a vote. The Labour Party are adamant that he is not a member. Bizarrely they say cards are sent out automatically before the membership is approved: .@BBCNewsnight No – he applied to join earlier in the

Douglas Murray

What is it with the far-left and violence?

Thanks to Guido Fawkes, I learn that the left-wing author Owen Jones has just appeared at the Sinn Fein summer school in Ireland.  According to Sinn Fein’s own newspaper, Owen used the opportunity to praise Sinn Fein’s ‘progressive’ politics, suggest that people take inspiration from the 1916 Easter Rising and announce what a ‘passionate believer’ he apparently is in a united Ireland. There are a number of interesting things about this.  The first is that it exposes what a sham the far-left’s attitude towards political violence really is. Owen isn’t the first person of his ilk to have supported Sinn Fein.  For decades there has been a dirty line-up of far-left figures