Actress Meggie Foster has brilliantly captured the spectacular war of words between Caroline Flint and Emily Thornberry that took place in the wake of the general election. Worth a watch…
Off the back of the TikTok doing the rounds, a source close to Ms Flint relays the unsurprising news that Thornberry is not proceeding with the threatened legal action, and it was “obviously just done to shut down journalists during leadership debate, as Caroline would’ve won”. Shocker.
Emily Thornberry here are your best bits xx pic.twitter.com/iHxBze9vzk
— John Stammers (@johnstammers) February 16, 2020
Guido was sorry to see Emily Thornberry narrowly miss out on the final stage of the Labour Leadership contest. Here are her Big Brother-style best bits…
Constituency Labour Party nominations close tomorrow, meaning there are just hours left for Emily Thornberry to squeak across the line for a second time. The Shadow Foreign secretary needs the backing of 33 local parties to make it onto the ballot, and as things stand has been endorsed by 28. She needs just five more…
At 340, Sir Keir Starmer QC has an absolute majority of all CLPs, while Rebecca Long-Bailey and Lisa Nandy are on 149 and 64 respectively. After tomorrow the final stage begins…
UPDATE: On the final day Thornberry is just three away…
UPDATE II: Thornberry is OUT. There are not enough CLPs left yet to nominate to get her to the required 33 threshold
One of the hottest-button issues in the Labour Party right now concerns a territorial dispute over two thousand miles away. The Jewish Labour Movement hustings last night asked each of the candidates whether they would identify as a Zionist. Guido brings you the lowdown…
Thornberry
“I am a zionist”
Starmer
“I don’t describe myself as a Zionist”
Nandy
“I believe that Jewish people have the right to national self determination, that makes me a Zionist.”
Long-Bailey
“I suppose that makes me a Zionist”
Who would have guessed that Long-Bailey would be more willing to describe herself as a Zionist than Sir Keir QC…
We are only half way through the Labour Leadership contest (seriously), and already the not-so-subtle attacks have started. On Newsnight’s debate last night, Emily Thornberry made a pointed remark about Rebecca Long-Bailey’s lack of commitment to tacking antisemitism within the Shadow Cabinet. Newsnight’s Katie Razzall had to step in…
ET “Keir and I were both in the Shadow Cabinet and would regularly, the two of us, call for regular reports to the Shadow Cabinet”
KR “Are you saying Becky… are you saying Rebecca didn’t”
ET “No I don’t think Rebecca did, but Keir and I did regularly.”
RL-B “Err, Rebecca did (nervous laugh) I think you’ll find…”
ET “Sorry I don’t remember.”
Awkward…
IPSOS Mori has some polling carried out last week suggesting that Momentum’s favoured candidate is the lest popular among voters. Among those who said they knew a great deal or a fair amount, the net favourability scores for Nandy and Starmer were fairly positive; the public, however, has a negative view of Thornberry and rated Becky even worse. Momentum activists obviously will ignore the views of ordinary voters, some of whom are no doubt Tories, wiser heads might want to reflect. As Tony Blair figured out, turning Tory voters into Labour voters is how you win elections…
