Labour’s shadow work and pensions spokesman Liam Byrne made a big fanfare today raging against the Tories “unacceptable” language.  Rewind back to his 2011 conference speech and Baldamort was singing from a very different hymn sheet:

RESPONSIBILTY TO WORK
But there is one responsibility more that we will not ignore. A renewed responsibility on everyone to take a job if they can. Let’s face the tough truth – that many people on the doorstep at the last election, felt that too often we were for shirkers not workers. We’ve got to deal with that if we want to get re-elected. 

Liam was right then, but was this use of “shirkers” a one off?

No. He told the LSE in January 2012:

“Labour is the party of hard workers not free-riders. The clue is in the name. We are the Labour party. The party that said that idleness is an evil. The party of workers, not shirkers”

Unacceptable language eh?