It turns out Sir Keir isn’t the only one trying to acid wash the Corbyn friendship away. Helene Reardon Bond, his Deputy Chief of Staff, has quietly removed the references to her days as Director of Jeremy’s office from her LinkedIn CV. Helene is also the mother of Jack Bond, who was a key member of Corbyn’s team for some years – responsible for Jezbollah’s social media output. Her husband was Corbyn’s driver to complete the left-wing family’s close links to the friend of Hamas. Now she’s referring to the Corbyn years as her “freelance consultant” era…
At the time of Reardon Bond’s appointment to Corbyn’s office in 2019, Corbyn’s team told LabourList she would “bring her experience and expertise to the leader’s office to step up our preparations for government.” Look how that turned out. Guido can’t really blame her for erasing it from her CV…
As Guido reported yesterday, Corbyn has a new Chief of Staff following the unceremonious removal of Karie Murphy two days ago. Whilst we know the new appointment, Helene Reardon Bond, is a married woman (purely on the basis her husband also works for Corbyn as his chauffeur), it looks like Bond has been flirting with someone else: Jo Swinson.
A quick scroll through Helene’s twitter shows a long history of overtly friendly messages with the Lib Dem leader, including “that’s the @joswinson I know!” and buying a signed copy of her book (apparently she has written one…)
Helene’s flirting with the Lib Dems shouldn’t come as a surprise though. Half of Labour’s voters are also doing it…
The Stalinist removal of Karie Murphy as Corbyn’s Chief of Staff yesterday was both shocking and unsurprising in equal measures. While Karie’s body is still warm, Corbyn has appointed former Whitehall equalities chief, Helene Reardon Bond, as her replacement.
Other than being characteristically posh, the appointment didn’t seem particularly interesting; however, it has now come to light that Bond’s own son, Jack, has worked in Corbyn’s office – running his Twitter account for a number of years. Bond’s husband is also one of Corbyn’s drivers.
As ever with the Labour party, it’s all about who you know…
