Labour MP Rosie Duffield has accused her own party of being “quite content” to sit back and let her be “hounded and harassed non-stop” for daring to speak out on women’s rights. In an excoriating new interview with Sam Lister in the Express, Duffield blasts Labour – including the leadership – for an “absolute lack of support” in the wake of abuse, and even claimed she now relies on Tory MPs for help:
“There are many women MPs who agree with me and some men and very few of them have backed me up or defended me or spoken out about their own views and I find that increasingly disappointing […] But also increasingly understandable as the toxic atmosphere gets worse and worse.”
She added that powerful campaign groups like LGBT Labour have “captured” the party, right up to Sir Keir. While she doesn’t mention Matthew Doyle by name, she insists she won’t let “a handful of people in a very small clique should hound me out”. Who could she mean? Surely not the people who actively brief against her, and then deny it on the record…
Rishi obviously had his four Weetabix this morning, hammering Sir Keir over his own record of propriety end ethics; accusing him of letting down women in his party, as well as school children thanks to the strikes. Referencing Guido’s story about Matthew Doyle’s briefing against Rosie Duffield last week, he accused Starmer of letting his right-hand man undermine his own female MPs. Tory backbenchers loved it…
It turns out Matthew Doyle wasn’t always briefing against Rosie Duffield. In speech footage spotted by Guido, the Labour MP-deriding Labour Party spin doctor is seen praising Corbyn’s 2017 victories, including university towns like Portsmouth… and Canterbury. Tempora mutantur, as they’d say at the Durham union debating society…
Piers Morgan’s TalkTV ratings soared to 40,000 viewers last night, as Rosie Duffield appeared on the show to discuss the trans row engulfing the Labour Party. The show’s terrestrial ratings shot up by 12,000 just as Piers aired Guido’s exclusive recording of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named…
Duffield herself pushed back on Doyle’s lies, claiming she’s only met him once, and slammed Keir for his inability to define a woman. Even calling it “dystopian”…
“…[I’m] speechless, really. I mean it just seems kind of mad, y’know. It’s dystopian. I don’t know what to make of it, half the time it just seems funny, half the time it’s really scary.”
A great show. Always happy to help, Piers…
Labour’s chief spin doctor Matthew Doyle has u-turned on insulting Rosie Duffield over her campaign to protect women’s rights. After being caught bang-to-rights insulting her and saying she should spend more time in her constituency and less time talking to JK Rowling, Doyle told Lobby hacks this lunchtime:
“Rosie Duffield doesn’t spend too much time hanging out with JK Rowling rather than with her constituents.”
While the name of the spokesman in question wasn’t tweeted out by journalists, Guido understands it was Matthew Doyle himself. Awkward…
Starmer responded to being asked about Rosie Duffield feeling like being in the Labour Party was like being in an abusive relationship…
“I’m very concerned that all of our discussions in the Labour party and in politics are discussions that we have with respect and with tolerance. And they’re the principles and the values that I want to see in our Labour party and that I insist on in our Labour party, whether it’s Rosie Duffield or anybody else. There will be differences of opinion, of course there will, but respect and tolerance are the values that we must have in all those debates.”
Starmer was later asked to respond specifically following reports of his aide Matthew Doyle’s comments about Rosie Duffield whether those principles he referred to stretched to his own aides. He said…
“Respect and tolerance are values of the entire Labour party. Of course I know there are strong and differing opinions on a number of issues. But respect and tolerance are there as my values, Labour party values, whatever we’re discussing.”
