Labour party

Jeremy Corbyn’s critics may well be setting the Labour leader impossible challenges by demanding that the party wins 400 seats in this week’s local elections. But Corbyn himself isn’t exactly making things easier either, telling reporters today that his party won’t lose seats on Thursday. Independent experts such as Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher are predicting substantial net losses of around 150 seats, so unless Corbyn has better intelligence than these very reliable sources, he seems to be setting himself a challenge that he knows he will fail. Why is the Labour leader doing this? The Rallings and Thrasher predictions, coupled with the very downbeat briefings that the party has

Labour might have hoped that the announcement of an independent inquiry into the issue of anti-Semitism in the party would have drawn a line under the matter, and let the party get back to its election message ahead of polling day on Thursday. But comments by senior Labour figures are ensuring that this row continues. This morning, Diane Abbott went on the Marr show and said that ‘It is a smear to say that Labour has a problem with anti-Semitism’—which makes you wonder why Jeremy Corbyn has set up an inquiry into the issue. If this was not enough, Unite leader Len McCluskey declared on the radio that ‘The idea

Anyone concerned about anti-Semitism in the Labour Party should welcome the appointment of Shami Chakrabarti, the former head of Liberty, to lead an internal inquiry into the matter, but it’s a little late in the day to be addressing this issue. And will the inquiry’s terms of reference allow her to investigate the leader of the party? The Jewish Chronicle drew attention to Jeremy Corbyn’s links to a rogues gallery of “Holocaust deniers, terrorists and some outright anti-Semites” back in August of last year. Among other dubious acts, Corbyn donated money to an organisation run by Paul Eisen, a self-confessed Holocaust denier who boasts of links to the Labour leader

If there’s one thing Jeremy Corbyn does not like, it’s being hassled by journalists. The Labour leader was filmed yesterday refusing to answer questions about Ken Livingstone’s remarks before he managed to give the camera crew the slip. He’s also been filmed walking through Westminster keeping quiet whilst journalists try and persuade him to answer questions. And earlier this month, Corbyn did not take kindly to a reporter from LBC doorstepping him following the row over David Cameron’s tax affairs. On all of those previous occasions, he’s managed to make a quick exit. But his attempts to do the same earlier today were thwarted – by a locked door. The

If I were the Conservative party I’d be getting worried: Labour’s implosion is happening too fast. At this rate they could fall apart and regroup in time to go into the next election with a respectable leader. Everybody knows the latest developments. Naz Shah MP was found to have said some anti-Semitic things on social media. After some bitter internal wrangling she was suspended from the party. Fellow MP Rupa Huq tried to come to her defence and compared anti-Semitism to any old mishap. And then Ken Livingstone smoothed it all over by talking about which of Hitler’s policies he thinks Zionists agree with. The low-point today was probably the

What has Jeremy Corbyn got against McDonald’s? He wants to block the fast-food chain from having an outlet at the Labour party conference, a position which has been blasted by quite a few MPs in his party, who presumably enjoy a Big Mac every now and then. It raises a more serious question though. According to their website, McDonald’s employ about 85,000 people in the UK. Most of these workers are voters. Add to that the number of British people who dine at McDonald’s – which must be in the millions – and you start to see why Corbyn’s McBoycott has gone down badly. Is snobbism behind it? Possibly. McDonald’s working conditions may not be the best in the labour market, but are they really

Although the weekly meeting of the parliamentary Labour party is a private affair, Jeremy Corbyn’s spokesman offers journalists lurking in the committee corridor outside a briefing as soon as it has concluded. Today he had to take questions from hacks on whether or not his boss goes to McDonald’s – prompted by the news that the Labour party is banning the fast food outlet from having a stall at its party conference. Both the staff and the burger ban came up at the meeting. It started with an observation from Baroness Armstrong that the Labour leader now has a phalanx of staff with him when he attends these sessions, as opposed

It’s been a good week for Vote Leave after they were given the official designation to campaign for Brexit in the EU referendum. Despite this, they still have a few problems they need to overcome. One of these comes in the form of Rick Astley, the eighties singer. A Belgian expat by the name of Mario Van Poppel has decided to try and cause some problems for the Leave camp’s digital operations. Van Poppel — who is based in London — has purchased several Vote Leave domains. While the official Vote Leave website can be found at www.voteleavetakecontrol.org, a visit to voteleave.com, voteleave.co.uk, voteleave.net or voteleave.org now leads to a video of Rick

A vandal smashing a window and calling it air conditioning. A mother marrying her son and declaring it a lesson in advanced sexual morality. A shoplifter caught with a chicken up his jumper and congratulating the store detectives on their commitment to property rights. That’s how David Cameron ducked the tax-abuse row at PMQs today. He basked in hypocrisy. He wallowed in smugness. He luxuriated in panic measures and called them far-sighted statesmanship. He chose to posture as the brilliant leader of a brilliant government whose brilliant new policy is to rip down the cloaks of secrecy that protect Britain’s tax-dodge paradises overseas. And he contrasted his zeal with the

As David Cameron finds himself in hot water over his admission that he once owned shares in an offshore fund, today ought to be a walk in the park for Labour. In fact, all Jeremy Corbyn need do is give the press a few soundbites on the Tories’ troubles and then sit back and relax. Alas this is Corbyn we’re talking about so things were never going to be that simple. Instead the Labour leader has managed to become the story after he was filmed scolding an LBC journalist outside his home after she attempted to ask for his thoughts on Cameron’s admission. Rather than answer, Corbyn told her that he