Caroline Lucas managed to achieve the remarkable feat of uniting right and left against her with the daftest proposal of silly season so far for an all-woman (and all-white) emergency ‘cabinet of national unity’ to take over and block no deal, “because women have shown they can bring a different perspective to crises, are able to reach out to those they disagree with and cooperate to find solutions”. Just women Caroline likes though, not women like Priti Patel, Liz Truss, Gisela Stuart, or apparently Diane Abbott.
Corbynistas who used to go dewy-eyed at the mere mention of Lucas have now been rapidly unpersoning her. Guido has rounded up some of the more enjoyable reactions…
Diane Abbott herself shut down the idea with an uncharacteristically sensible response. Thornberry, who was approached by Lucas to the fury of the Corbynistas, also poured cold water on it:
However it was Ellie Mae O’Hagan who saved the best till last, identifying the true enemy: centrism. Corbynistia has always been at war with Lucasia…
Lucas’s latest idea is never going to fly, as Guido has already noted, wild fantasising about ‘national unity’ PMs is this year’s silly season activity of choice. However there is a school of thought that by deliberately putting out an obviously daft idea and getting everyone talking about it, Lucas is helping to shift the Overton Window to make a ‘national unity’ Government under someone less bonkers seem more reasonable. Guido won’t be holding his breath…
As readers nurse their hangovers this morning – yes, that really did happen – spare a thought for the lefties of Twitter who were supporting Colombia. Top Corbynista Ellie Mae O’Hagan, who to be fair is Welsh, was not a fan of yesterday’s Sun front page and accordingly called for England to be “thrashed”:
So seriously, fuck headlines like this. And vamos Colombia esta noche; I hope England get thrashed. pic.twitter.com/OF1jWWIlab
— Ellie Mae O’Hagan (@MissEllieMae) July 3, 2018
Kevin Maguire sent this premature tweet when it looked like it might not be coming home:
That sound is Germany laughing at English fans who laughed at Germany going out. They do have a word for schadenfreude #EngCol
— Kevin Maguire (@Kevin_Maguire) July 3, 2018
Guardian writer and fellow Welshwoman Dawn Foster, who is supporting England’s quarter final opponents Sweden, spent the evening at a Sinn Fein event and gave her backing to the Colombian fans:
Meanwhile the New Statesman published a piece by Rachel Cockerell, who “spent three months in Colombia last year”, headlined: “I hope England lose tonight”.
I hope @England lose tonight#ENGCOL #WorldCuphttps://t.co/52NERDaI9A
— New Statesman (@NewStatesman) July 3, 2018
Sorry Ellie Mae, Dawn, Kev, Rachel, your boys took one hell of a beating…
Ellie Mae O’Hagan goes full authoritarian in The Guardian‘s ‘Utopian Thinking’ column today, proposing a “restriction on the number of privately educated people in Britain’s elite”:
“In journalism, things are going backwards, with more journalists now coming from private schools than in 1987… let’s introduce quotas. If 7% of the population goes to private school, then it seems only fair that 7% of Britain’s elite jobs should go to privately educated individuals. This would include chief executives, barristers, journalists, judges, medical professionals and MPs.“
Putting aside the moral and practical objections, let’s indulge for a moment in the breathtaking hypocrisy of Ellie’s ‘utopia’. If she had her way, the vast majority of her own newsroom would either be sacked or never have been employed. Privately educated senior Guardianistas, answer the register after your name is called…
- George Monbiot, Stowe School
- Polly Toynbee, Badminton School
- Andrew Rawnsley, Rugby School
- Jonathan Freedland, University College School
- Zoe Williams, Godolphin and Latymer Girls School
- Tanya Gold, Kingston Grammar School (Independent)
- Marina Hyde, Downe House for Girls
- Bidisha Bandyopadhyay, Haberdashers’ Aske’s School for Girls
- Peter Bradshaw, Haberdashers’ Aske’s Boys’ School
- David Mitchell, Abingdon School
- Timothy Garton-Ash, Sherborne School
- John Hooper, St Benedict’s School
- Sam Leith, Eton College
- Peter Preston, Loughborough Grammar School (Independent)
- Simon Jenkins, Mill Hill School
- Richard Norton-Taylor, Kings School, Canterbury
- Clare Armitstead, Bedales
- Ben Goldacre, Magdalen College School
- Martin Wainwright, Shrewsbury School
- Victoria Coren, various independent schools
- Hadley Freeman, “boarding school in Cambridge”
- Matthew d’Ancona, St Dunstan’s College
- Former Editor Alan Rusbridger and occasional contributor, Cranleigh School
Perhaps for her next piece Ellie Mae can tell us which of her colleagues she thinks deserves the chop on the basis of their background…
There are undoubtedly plenty more privileged Guardianistas (let Guido know via the comments). O’Hagan’s own privately educated VICE columnist boyfriend* Sam Kriss (University College School) would also surely be out of a job. Actually, maybe it’s not such a bad idea after all…
N.B. Presumably 93% of Ellie’s other boyfriends were state educated. Incidentally, 0% of the Guido Fawkes newsroom were privately educated.
Earlier this month Guido gave you our dictionary of Corbynista slang, most prominent of which is the term “the absolute boy” used to describe Jezza. The phrase is causing concern among the more snowflakey of Corbynista supporters. Pro-Jez activist/journalist Ellie Mae O’Hagan says it’s sexist:
“It’s pretty masculine, which I do kind of dislike… it’s sort of inclusively masculine… why is the default always coded male? It’s annoying… it’s just annoying that the default is always masculine.“
Why is the default phrase for Corbyn male? Probably because he’s a bloke, Ellie. Loony left eating itself…
Owen Jones is a close comrade of Clive Lewis, there are even reports Owen has been sounding out Labour MPs about whether they’d back Clive as a future leader. Ellie Mae O’Hagan is a Guardian colleague of Jones and is also a big Clive Lewis fan – she has repeatedly praised Lewis as a “rising star in the Labour Party” and gave him a softball interview alongside Owen. Interesting that both Owen and Ellie Mae are twisting the knife into Corbyn tonight:
Fair to say these tweets from two high profile former Corbynistas, who backed Jez for the leadership, have gone down like a cup of sick with Labour moderates…
