As Labour continues back-patting in the Liverpool Exhibition Centre, over at local socialist haunt The Casa Bar the Cuba Solidarity Campaign gathered for a fundraiser to help bypass the US’ sanctions regime against the communist country. Apart from receiving supportive speeches from Labour MPs and the Cuban Ambassador, numerous union representatives pledged their support to the totalitarian state…
Prison Officers Association general secretary Steve Gillan turned up to announce his union, the largest of prison officers in the UK, would fund the campaign to the tune of £10,000. He added that the funding wasn’t discretionary: “We’re not going to specify how that’s spent… Viva Cuba.” Union dues well spent then…
No one picked up the irony of someone representing prison officers pledging funding for a country which is currently starving and torturing over 1,020 political prisoners. They were too busy getting raffle tickets with a prize of a Che Guevara mug or flights to Cuba to notice…
Tom Baldwin, author of Starmer’s hagiography, spoke to Times Radio:
Tom Baldwin: “I think he’d like to do something. He’s very dutiful and driven by service. That’s why he came into politics. I think that’s characterised his time as prime minister. He hasn’t always sought popularity or been good at being popular. But I think he has some of the necessary qualities that we actually do want in a prime minister. That resilience, that relentlessness, that ability to carry the weight and the job really does weigh very heavily on people and he carries that weight very, very well.”
Jo Coburn: “NATO Secretary-General?”
Tom Baldwin: “I think that’s something that he would be interested in. I think it probably requires Andy Burnham’s government to support him in that and these are some of the questions which Andy Burnham has to resolve quite quickly.”