Labour party

If any further evidence was needed about the disingenuousness of Jeremy Corbyn and the dangers a government led by him might pose internationally – not just for Britain but also for Britain’s Nato allies – it is worth watching Corbyn’s interview on Iran with the BBC’s Andrew Marr yesterday. ‘You've been very reluctant to condemn the government of Iran. Can I read you what Amnesty International has said about Iran… ?’ began Marr yesterday, to which Corbyn interrupted him with the extraordinary response: ‘I think that actually, if I may say so, you're spending too much time reading the Daily Mail, do you know that?

I wonder if we are about to see a mass resignation of women from Labour, furious at the party’s collapse before the shrieking transgender army? Only last week it said that the 50 all-women shortlists for parliamentary seats would indeed be restricted to women, rather than opened up to people with penises and weighty scrotums who like to dress up as ladies. This followed the threat of action under equalities legislation from feminists enraged that their long fight for equal representation was once again under threat from men; this time men in a not-too-cunning disguise. The legal threat was crowdfunded by a bunch of sisters and fellow travellers — but then the NEC backtracked. It said it intended to be ‘ahead of the law’ (i.e.

As Jeremy Corbyn's grip over the Labour party tightens, the threat of deselection for more moderate Labour MPs who do not toe the party line is increasing. Labour MPs who are concerned about their futures may be looking for ways to fight back. I can offer one example of how this can be done, from my time working as a special advisor to the Labour MP John Silkin. In 1981, Tony Benn announced he was challenging Labour’s Deputy Leader, Denis Healey, for his job. Labour MPs, with minds of their own, were appalled. They saw the tactic as part of the nasty war being waged in the constituencies by a group called Campaign for Labour Party Democracy (CLPD) to deselect them as candidates and to stop them speaking up for all their constituents.

Here we go again. The stand out moment of the latest Question Time saw a young woman accuse a Tory minister of purposefully underfunding the NHS in order to  make the argument for privatisation. The exchange left Margot James, a DCMS minister, insisting that she was 'not a liar' and calling out the accusations as false. Since then, the clip of the young woman taking James to task has been widely shared online. Only all is not what it seems. It turns out that the audience member is not your average viewer. In fact, Rebecca Shirazi is a local Labour party candidate. Corbynista Laura Pidcock has been tweeting her praises: https://twitter.com/LauraPidcockMP/status/954345709616103424 So much for playing fair...

Here we go again. For some time now Labour's Brexit confusion can be described as 'complicated' at best. Matters aren't helped by the fact that Labour shadow cabinet members often go on the airwaves and contradict each others – sometimes even themselves. This was evidenced last month took to the Andrew Marr show to claim that Labour had never supported a second referendum – despite writing to a constituent to say she would argue for the 'right of the electorate to vote on any deal that is finally agreed'. Now it seems Labour's ever-changing Brexit position is getting too much even for Abbott.

For Jeremy Corbyn and his allies, there has been no far-left takeover of the Labour party or its governing National Executive Committee. It’s true that, this week, Corbyn supporters came to control the majority of the NEC, completing their command of the party apparatus. But they see this as getting rid of the last of the right-wingers and enabling — for the first time — the Labour party to dedicate itself to the interests of the working class. It’s not the triumph of a fringe, they say, but the expulsion of a fringe. The Corbynite agenda of government expansion, mass nationalisation of railways, utilities and more, can now be pursued. Those still laughing at all that have not been paying attention.

When is left-wing not left-wing enough? Veteran Labour organiser Ann Black is finding out the hard way. Yesterday morning, she was the respected chair of the disputes panel, the party’s internal disciplinary committee, and responsible for investigating anti-Semitism and other accusations against members. Now, she is the respected former chair, ousted in a Momentum-led coup as the far-left celebrates its majority on the National Executive Committee with a bit of muscle-flexing.  Black is not some Blairite ultra. She was elected on the leftist Grassroots Alliance slate. What changed? Well, some comrades have not been impressed by her handling of suspensions.

Here we go again. The results of the latest election for Labour's National Executive Committee are in and it's a clear run for Momentum. The three members selected are all Momentum candidates: Jon Lansman, Yasmine Dar and Rachel Garnham. Alas, not everyone is a winner. Or more precisely, Eddie Izzard is not a winner. The comedian-turned-aspiring-politician has missed out on a place on the NEC for the second time – coming in fourth. https://twitter.com/jonlansman/status/952870325733285888 Still, Mr S could have predicted this would happen. Every campaign the cross-dressing comedian attaches himself to has a tendency to end in failure.

The return of Esther McVey to the Cabinet is bad news for John McDonnell and Labour's claim of a kinder, gentler politics. It has led many hacks and broadcasters to return to remarks he made about 'lynching' McVey, at a Remembrance Sunday event back in 2014. But when they do so, Labour complain. The shadow chancellor's defence is that he was quoting someone else who (he claims) wanted to lynch her – rather than wanting to lynch her himself. Happily, for clarity's sake, the Sunday Politics today aired the recording: https://twitter.com/daily_politics/status/952504692684173313 Mr S will leave it to readers to judge for themselves...

Gerard Coyne’s campaign team will reform in Birmingham this week, as the whisper spreads that control of Unite, Britain’s biggest union, and a sizeable share of influence in the Labour party, is up for grabs. By rights, Coyne should no longer have a 'team' or a career. Last year’s election for the general secretary of Unite saw the far left and union bureaucracy use Putinesque tactics to ensure their victory. They marked their success by firing Coyne from his job as Unite's West Midlands regional secretary. He had had the bad manners to challenge Len McCluskey in a 'free' election. Clearly, such impertinence could not go unpunished. Perhaps nothing will change.

Angela Rayner is perhaps the only Labour MP who works with a picture of Theresa May hanging above her desk. It’s there for inspiration, she says, a daily reminder of the general incompetence of the Conservative government and the need for its removal. ‘That picture motivates me, in a strange way,’ she says when we meet. ‘They are doing such a bad job of Brexit, and a lot of people will be let down. Again. The people who already think that politicians are lower than a snake’s belly.’ The anger is with politicians in general. ‘It just feels that this generation is not doing a very good job.’ Ms Rayner, 37, has been a politician for not even three years and her rise has been nothing short of extraordinary.

I interview Angela Rayner, the Shadow Education Secretary, for the forthcoming edition of The Spectator. I met her before Christmas and was fascinated by the way she explains her politics in terms of her biography. She tells me how much she owes to a welfare state that was there for her, in a way that it wasn’t for her mum, who left school aged 12. She worked her way up, and says a few Tories ask her why she isn’t a Conservative. Simple, she says: Labour is the party of the helping hand, and the Tories are not very sympathetic to single parents like her. The ones who’ve made it: sure, Tories like them. They like success. But those who still struggle? Who might not be so successful? Only Labour stands for them. I could have ran four pages words of interview with her.

Diet nannies will spend Christmas telling us ‘you are what you eat’ but in the House of Commons ‘you are where you sit’. Are you a Tory Whips’ stooge or a Dominic Grieve groupie aching to block Brexit, a braw new blue Scot or an English provincial plodder without hope of advancement? Parliament-watchers discern plenty about your political leanings from where you park your posterior. Each side of the Commons chamber has five green-leather benches that are divided by a gangway. On the government side of the chamber, all MPs are Conservatives except for a couple who have had the Whip withdrawn. On the opposition side, the lower four benches ‘beyond the gangway’ (i.e.

Tory MPs are now sufficiently worried about the changes to the way that refuges for domestic abuse victims are funded that they have started to speak out publicly. This morning, in a Westminster Hall debate, three Conservative backbenchers told the Communities and Local Government minister Marcus Jones that the government ‘must intervene’ to stop refuges closing as a result of these funding changes. Sutton and Cheam MP Paul Scully, Bolton West MP Chris Green, and Ochil and South Perthshire MP Luke Graham all expressed concerns about the new funding model. Both Scully and Graham described how members of their own families had been victims of domestic violence.

Despite the government reaching its long-awaited milestone of ’sufficient progress’ in the Brexit talks last week, certain key figures on both sides of the debate seem intent on muddying the waters as much as possible. Mr Steerpike reports on David Davis’s latest efforts on that front, while Labour MPs are trying to understand the implications of Keir Starmer’s latest utterances on their party’s Brexit position.