Labour party

Dame Tessa Jowell has died aged 70 after suffering a haemorrhage on Friday. The former Labour cabinet minister was diagnosed with brain cancer in May last year. In a post on Alastair Campbell’s personal blog. Jowell’s close friend David Blunkett has written a tube to his former colleague:. ‘Tessa was one of my closest friends for over 40 years. In 1980s local government, Tessa in Camden and myself in Sheffield, we helped to promote an alternative to Old Labour on the one hand and the far left on the other. Before the 1997 Labour victory, we worked on a programme to nurture children from the moment of their birth, but crucially also to

The Conservatives better-than-expected election result has been dampened somewhat by CCHQ’s decision to reinstate a councillor suspended for comparing an Asian man with a dog last June in order to take control of Pendle council. Labour have been quick to go on the attack – accusing the Tories of abandoning decency in favour of a power grab. However, Labour don’t have the monopoly on outrage over elected councillors. While the party failed to get the landslide it had hoped, there was one particular cause for celebration in Birmingham: Safia Alif Noor Akhtar, the party’s candidate in Birmingham Small Heath, ‘waltz[ed] to victory’ in the words of the local paper. Mr S

If you want to know how last night was for the Labour Party, you need to look no further than the statement that Jeremy Corbyn has just released on the results. It is not a celebratory comment on Labour’s spectacular night, but a defensive one, describing the local elections as a ‘solid set of results’. He adds: ‘In a sign of how worried they are about Labour’s advance, the Tories talked up our chances to unrealistic levels, especially in London. The results show they’re right to be worried – we came within a whisker of winning Wandsworth for the first time in over 40 years.’ Corbyn is right, by the

Another word which has gained a new meaning in the present decade, along with ‘vulnerable’ and ‘diverse’: survivor. Once it meant a person who had been transported to Auschwitz but somehow came out alive. Or a person who had been involved in a terrible car crash but had escaped with only a broken neck. Today it means someone whose nipple was perhaps gently tweaked by a light entertainment star 40 years ago. Or someone who was mildly and almost certainly justifiably bullied at school. I’m also getting a little weary of the elephant in the room. It has become for me, when talking about transformative grammar, the elephant in the

Yesterday, Parliament debated anti-Semitism. It is hard to get over the oddness of the situation. It is 150 years ago since the Conservatives produced their first Jewish leader: Benjamin Disraeli became Prime Minister on 27 February 1868. If the Tory party in the 21st century had a leader who was seen as tolerant of anti-Semitism, and was backed by its most anti-Semitic factions, the scandal would bring him and/or it crashing to the ground. Yet with Labour, this is not so. Mr Corbyn is a bit uneasy with his predicament, but not fearing for his political life. How have we got here? This is an extract from Charles Moore’s Notes. The

The best that can be said for Jeremy Corbyn’s response to air strikes against the Assad regime is that he is at least consistent. Why did he assert that the smart cuff meted out last night risked ‘escalating further… an already devastating conflict’? Because in Corbyn’s worldview, it is the felling of chemical weapons factories, not the extermination of children with the chemical weapons those factories produce, that escalates conflict. Why did he echo Syrian state media in questioning the legality of military action? Because Corbyn is a cynic who calculates that feigning concern for the global rules-based order — something he believes in only intermittently — is useful for stalling, deflection and water-muddying.

There are many figures in the Labour party who wish that Jeremy Corbyn would stay schtum on foreign policy. Whether it’s his anti-West views, warm feeling towards his ‘friends’ Hamas or complicated relationship with Russia, when the Labour leader turns to international affairs, many of his MPs look on in despair. But up until now Mr S had thought that the shadow cabinet were at least on his side. Perhaps not. In an interview with the House magazine, Kate Osamor – the shadow  international development secretary – suggests Corbyn should stop commenting on foreign policy and ‘just let his spokesperson speak’. Referring to Corbyn’s comments this week on the situation

This week Tony Blair managed to say something surprising. In a rare sighting of modesty, the former prime minister said that he was not the man to lead a new centre party. But could another Blair be the man for the job? Mr S only asks after the Guardian reported that the new centre party in the works – linked to LoveFilm’s Simon Franks and £50m of potential funding – has links to Blair’s son Euan: ‘One person who was approached to join the fledgling organisation was told Euan Blair was on its board, and his father, the former Labour prime minister, had been helpful in recommending potential donors. Other

This afternoon Jeremy Corbyn received the news that Israel’s Labour party are to suspend relations with him – accusing the Labour leader of sanctioning anti-Semitism. However, Corbyn can at least end the day even – having won a surprise endorsement. Former BNP leader Nick Griffin has taken to social media to say that he plans to vote for Labour for the first time – on the condition that Corbyn ‘sticks to his guns’ and ‘refuses to blame Assad’ for the suspected chemical attack in Syria: IF he sticks to his guns then for 1st time in my life I will vote #Labour - right now NOTHING is more important than resisting

The UN Security Council will meet on Monday to discuss a suspected chemical attack in Syria on the rebel-held town of Douma. With dozens of people killed, today there has been widespread outrage, with President Trump one of many to criticise Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his allies Russia and Iran – saying there will be a ‘big price to pay’. However, over in Labour HQ a more vague response is underway. The Labour press office have today issued a statement which is so bold as to suggest that ‘anyone found responsible’ for using chemical weapons should be ‘brought to justice’. It goes on to criticise the atrocities of this war ‘whether committed

Here we go again. Although John McDonnell advised his Labour comrades to boycott Russia Today following the Salisbury poisoning, not everyone is willing to take heed of his advice. On Thursday, Chris Williamson – a key Corbyn ally – took to the airwaves of the Kremlin-funded broadcaster to cast doubt on the government’s handling of the nerve agent attack on a former Russian double agent. With Moscow claiming it has nothing to with them, the Labour MP said that it was diplomatic row with Russia was ‘very convenient for the Government’ and had been used ‘not so much as a smoking gun but as a smoke screen’ to divert attention from Brexit

In this week’s episode, we talk about red London – just how badly will the Tories do in the upcoming local elections, and why do people love Sadiq Khan? We also talk about the end of Macron’s political honeymoon, and the death of the Grand Tour. As national headlines are dominated by Jeremy Corbyn, local Labour candidates are preparing for a sweeping victory through London’s upcoming local elections. Will Heaven, the Spectator’s Managing Editor, writes in this week’s cover that ‘the Tories are braced for disaster’. Why is London turning red? Joining him is Andrew Gilligan, senior correspondent at the Sunday Times, who writes in this week’s magazine that Sadiq

When I lived in the Soviet Union in my early twenties, I developed a personal hostility to socialism. I saw the misery it had visited on that society – the political, spiritual and economic harm. I understood at first-hand how the secret police corrupted personal and public life, how state propaganda denied freedom of thought and how the regime hid the slaughter and imprisonment of millions of its own people. I came to the conclusion that whichever totalitarian power had survived World War II – Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union – they would probably have looked much the same by the time of their demise. I never understood why Westerners did not

The supporters of Jeremy Corbyn are meant to comprise the most cultish movement British politics has seen. Yet on the issue of left anti-Semitism they do not blindly follow their leader. For once in their lives, they give every impression of thinking for themselves. Corbyn has come as close as he can to admitting a mistake – which by most people’s standards is not close at all. Like Stalin airbrushing his own history, he has deleted his Facebook account. He did not explain how he found himself a member of Facebook groups that featured Holocaust denial, or defending  medieval fanatics who believe Jews drink the blood of Christian children, or