Guido has discovered old minutes of a chaotic Oxford University Student Union meeting in 2000, when then OUSU President and now Shadow Chancellor Anneliese Dodds went along with a bad taste (presumed) joke about lynching the then NUS President Andrew Pakes, who belonged to the Blairite Labour Students faction. Factionalism in Labour circles starts young. Naturally, it was during a discussion about one of those student demonstrations that achieve so much…

Anneliese Dodds (St Hilda’s) explained that we had to change the date of the demo due to police budgetary constraints. A national march like this would be brilliant for reinvigorating media attention. NUS President confirmed he would speak.

John Courouble (Campion Hall ) asked if Andrew Pakes would be lynched? Anneliese hoped that people would be sensible.

Nicely ambiguously done. John McDonnell isn’t the only Shadow Chancellor to have engaged with bad taste jokes about lynching ‘right-wing’ political figures…