Labour’s focus on zero-hours contracts is on the rocks after it was revealed Labour councils all over the country use them. “A Labour spokeswoman” appears to be in full retreat, telling the Standard that they “were not always bad” and that “this sort of flexibility can be important for some employees”. Yes, for Guardian staff, Co-Op workers, et cetera…

This all reminds Guido of Kinnock’s 1985’s conference speech:

“I’ll tell you what happens with impossible promises. You start with far-fetched resolutions.  They are then pickled into a rigid dogma, a code, and you go through the years sticking to that, out-dated, mis-placed, irrelevant to the real needs, and you end in the grotesque chaos of a Labour council – a Labour council – hiring taxis to scuttle round a city handing out redundancy notices to its own workers”. 

If Miliband wants to end zero-hours contracts how long before his Labour councils “because of a far-fetched, rigid dogma” are “handing out redundancy notices to their own workers”?

When Neil Kinnock can pick it apart, it is safe to say the fightback is not going very well.