Labour party

Tonight’s meeting of the parliamentary Labour party could have been a lot worse. It was full of very concerned MPs, many of whom had complaints they wanted to air. A senior Labourite did say it was the most ‘uplifting’ meeting he had attended because of the ‘ferocity’ of attacks on Corbyn. Jack Dromey gave an angry speech about Ken Livingstone’s comments about the 7/7 bombers, which colleagues leaving said was ‘brilliant’, while others expressed concerns about Corbynite grassroots group Momentum, arguing it was going to divide the party. David Winnick described the group as a ‘party within a party’.

John McDonnell spoke at a Momentum curry dinner in Oldham yesterday evening, following a day on the doorstep ahead of Thursday’s by-election. I was lurking at the back and there weren't many other journalists there. The shadow chancellor raised expectations for Labour holding onto the seat, as well as telling Momentum activists that the party has to defeat Ukip, who are seen as the most likely challengers, because it is an ‘evil force within our society’: WATCH 1/3 John McDonnell at Momentum curry dinner: #Ukip is "an evil force within our society" https://t.

The Labour Party has lifted its suspension of Andrew Fisher, a political aide to Jeremy Corbyn, following an investigation into some controversial comments. Prior to his employment with Corbyn, Fisher encouraged voters not to back Labour in Croydon South during May's general election — which would normally result in an expulsion from the party — as well as describing Tony Blair and Alistair Campbell as 'scumbags' and Jack Straw a 'vile git'. After an investigation into these remarks, Labour's National Executive Committee has let Fisher off with a warning. This isn't a surprise, given that NEC member Peter Willsman blogged earlier this week that the Fisher matter would be 'satisfactorily resolved very shortly'.

Jeremy Corbyn didn’t show his Shadow Foreign Secretary a copy of what he was going to say in response to David Cameron’s statement on Syria, Coffee House understands. Sources have told me that Hilary Benn was spotted sitting outside Corbyn’s office this morning before the Prime Minister made his Commons statement. Benn appeared to be waiting for something. When I asked his spokesman whether Benn had been given advance sight of Corbyn’s planned response to the Prime Minister, the spokesman said ‘no’.

In the peroration of his statement today, George Osborne declared that the Tories were ‘the mainstream representatives of the working people of Britain.’ This is how he wants to position the Tories and it is why the tax credit changes had to go: they were getting in the way of the Tory attempt to rebrand themselves as the workers’ party. By ditching the tax credit changes, the Tories can now return to this theme—and can try and gain maximum political benefit from the national living wage. Osborne believes that with Jeremy Corbyn / John McDonnell leading the Labour party, the Tories have a real opportunity to pick up support from low income voters who wouldn’t normally have thought of voting for the Tories.

Assuming we haven’t been vaporised by Vlad, the Oldham West and Royton by-election takes place next week, and Labour are seriously worried. Ukip’s odds to take the seat have fallen to 11/4 and as this observation from a campaigner explains, much of this seems down to the Corbyn effect. Labour have huge problems with their working class vote from what I have seen. These results were essentially reflected across the board by the 100 other campaigners over the last 2 weeks. Ukip is more popular than Farage though very few actively dislike him. But Corbyn has completely turned off his vote. Ukip are still going to struggle because near 30% (south east Asian electorate) actively dislike Ukip And are certain to vote Labour if they come out to vote.