Labour party

Labour’s reshuffle isn’t, as some foolishly alleged, over. It may never end, as frontbenchers decide to resign over the internal warfare in the party. This morning Catherine McKinnell, who was Shadow Attorney General, has resigned, citing family reasons, the struggle to balance frontbench and constituency life, and ‘the situation in which the Labour Party now finds itself’, which the Newcastle North MP says has ‘amplified’ the first two issues. She writes: ‘However, as events have unfolded over recent weeks, my concerns about the direction and internal conflict within the Labour Party have only grown, and I fear this is taking us down an increasingly negative path. I feel that I

Oh dear. It’s safe to say that last week was not a great week for Jeremy Corbyn after the Labour leader found members of his party on the verge of revolt following his so-called ‘revenge reshuffle’. His decision to sack members of his Shadow Cabinet led to resignations from Shadow Ministers as party members criticised his decision to move Emily Thornberry — who is anti-Trident — into the role of Shadow Defence Secretary. However despite this the Labour leader appears to be on fighting form. A series of rather strange expletive-ridden messages have been emitted from his Twitter account this evening: While Mr S suspects it is a hacker — rather than Corbyn — behind the

The Labour party has this evening complained about the BBC arranging for Stephen Doughty to announce his resignation on the Daily Politics. A spokesperson for Jeremy Corbyn said: ‘By the BBC’s own account, BBC journalists and presenters proposed and secured the resignation of a shadow minister on air in the immediate run-up to Prime Minister’s Questions, apparently to ensure maximum news and political impact. That was evidently done before any notice of resignation was sent to the Labour leader. ‘Such orchestration of political controversy is an unacceptable breach of the BBC’s role and statutory obligations ‘Trust in the impartiality and independence of the BBC is essential. The BBC’s role is

It’s safe to say this week hasn’t been the best for Labour. As well as a never-ending reshuffle saga, Corbyn was accused of ‘low-level non-violent misogyny’ over the lack of women in the top roles in his Shadow Cabinet by Labour MP Jess Phillips. So with the cabinet officially reshuffled, brains at Labour HQ decided it was time for a very special announcement: they had increased the number of women in their Shadow Cabinet by one! A press release entitled ‘NEWS FROM LABOUR: Following the reshuffle women now occupy 17 out of the 31 shadow cabinet positions’ was sent around which included the number of women in both the shadow cabinet

According to John McDonnell, the reason three Labour frontbenchers resigned today is that there is a ‘group within the Labour party who have a right-wing conservative agenda. Within Progress itself, there are some who are quite hard right, and I think they’ve never accepted Jeremy’s leadership’. McDonnell told Channel 4 News that these ‘hard right’ MPs were still welcome in the Labour party because it is a ‘broad church’, but it was clear that he wants to paint Progress, largely a Blairite campaign group, as a menace. Certainly Progress has a different approach to left-wing politics than McDonnell. And it’s not supportive of the current Labour leadership. But the Shadow

In December, Julie Burchill had lunch with Jess Phillips MP, and decided in an article for Spectator Life that the gobby Brummie had the balls to drag the Labour party back from Korbyn’s Keystone Kommunism. It now seems that Phillips agrees. Speaking on Newsnight last night, she admitted – over a pint – that she was indeed interested in the role: ‘Yes, absolutely I would consider doing it, a long time in the future. It’s not something I’m planning on doing any time soon but it’s absolutely something I would do in the future, yes.’ Given what a tedious omnishambles Corbyn’s reshuffle is turning out to be, and given that Phillips has called for a