Former Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and prominent Labour figure Jon Ashworth has lost his seat in Leicester South to a pro-Gaza Independent candidate. He’s been heavily involved in the campaign and prep for the Labour government. A shock for Labour…
Labour isn’t just confused on £28 billion and Gaza. Its frontbench seems to have no idea what to do about vaping. Less than two months ago Wes Streeting said that the party “was considering making e-cigarettes prescription-only“, then policy chieftain Jon Ashworth said “smoking cessation services have been cut quite deeply by the Conservatives” and he “wouldn’t go down that line“. Hot air from two heavy hitters…
Meanwhile, Labour whip Mary Glindon yesterday hosted a Parliamentary Roundtable “on a Retailer and Distributor Licensing Scheme for the Vaping Sector” which is a priority for vaping retailers trying to counter the government with rearguard action. Glindon has also been retweeting content from the UK Vaping Industry Association calling for a licensing scheme. Labour in the Lords is so hard-line it wants smoking and vaping banned on the street outside pubs. Consistency is nowhere to be seen, especially from the frontbench. What are Labour smoking…
Labour’s shadow departments are finishing up sending the policies they want on the manifesto to HQ before the 8th of February deadline. Guido hears Starmer’s unofficial policy chieftain Jon Ashworth is working with Labour HQ’s policy heads to draft up a new pledge card – itself the brainchild of campaign manager Morgan McSweeney – to hand out on the doorstep. It will look similar to Blair’s famous 1997 card with policies to sell the party. Guido has drafted one in case Jon needs any ideas…
Guido wonders what the shadow cabinet will make of the policies when they see them – he hears they won’t be signing off on the final gamut and will have to defend them come what may. In the meantime they can play the game: “Guess What My Party’s Policies Are”…
The highlight of live-band karaoke from Labour Conference’s Mirror party last night was Lisa Nandy and Jon Ashworth reunited to give Rick Astley’s classic “Never Gonna Give You Up” their best shot. Ashworth was in an elevated state judging by the colour of his face…
Hat-tip: Tom Harwood
Yet another week in Westminster has begun with yet another Labour U-Turn. This time, the party has said that it will now keep the two-child benefit cap, which their Deputy Leader previously called “obscene and inhumane”. Despite the fact Jonathan Ashworth, the Shadow Cabinet member responsible for *checks notes* benefits, decried the “heinous policy” just last month, Keir Starmer said on Sunday that Labour wouldn’t change the policy. It’s left Yvette Cooper facing some tough questions on the morning round…
Speaking to Kay Burley on Sky News, Yvette Cooper couldn’t say whether Labour supported the cap – though she was quick to spell out that they “opposed it when it first came in”. Should give CCHQ the chance to flog more flip-flops in time for summer recess.
On Saturday morning Labour sent out an embargoed press release on behalf of Jonathan Ashworth MP, Labour’s Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, claiming “The Tories are breaking all the wrong records…”. The claim was that more than half a trillion working days had been lost to sickness since the last General Election. An astounding number.
Ashworth was due to do the media round on Sunday morning where no doubt he would be intoning gravely about this Tory record. A trillion is a thousand billion. Or a million millions. There are 33 million people in the British workforce. So doing the maths this works out 500,000 / 33 days lost per person since 2013, which equates to 15,151 days lost per British worker to sickness. You can see where Guido is going with this maths lesson. This is roughly 7 times as many working days as there have been since 2013.
There are exaggerations and there are exaggerations. The implicit claim from Jon Ashworth – that no one had gone to work since 2013 – was so ridiculous it made Guido laugh even before doing a rough calculation. If Labour win the next general election he will be responsible for a £250 billion spending budget. That he signed this press release off suggests he is innumerate.
This wasn’t a typo, in the footnotes of the press release they repeated the “half a trillion” claim. After some 4 hours had passed Labour’s press office realised their numbers were out by a mere 100,000%. They sent a correction. These are the same people who claim their spending plans are fully costed and their figures have been checked.
