After news broke last night of further delays to HS2, one Labour MP couldn’t restrain his anger. Not content with posting one tweet condemning the project, Jon Trickett took to adding a supportive voice to his argument. In a now deleted quote tweet of himself, he began “couldn’t agree more Jon”…
It’s unclear if Jon simply forgot to switch to his burner account, or if a staff member confused their Tweetdeck settings. The use of the same hashtag and deliberate typo would suggest Jon was imitating a supportive punter. Guido contacted Jon’s office for an explanation, to no response. Now wot?
Last Wednesday Labour was furious at the Tories for ‘offering access’ to the next chancellor ahead of the forthcoming party conference. Responding to the report in The Guardian that donors can pay £3,000 to meet Kwasi Kwarteng, Labour MP Jon Trickett accused the Tories of putting democracy up for sale:
The Tories are offering businesses access to Government Ministers for £3k a pop.
— Jon Trickett MP (@jon_trickett) August 24, 2022
Democracy shouldn’t be for sale. We need big corporate money out of politics 👇https://t.co/iz42pdi6Er
Alastair Campbell commented, “same old Tories same old sleaze.” Transparency International said the move “reinforces public concerns that cash buys privileged access and influence in our democracy.”
Guido was astonished, therefore, to see Sir Keir’s own St. Pancras Labour branch simultaneously launching a fundraising auction to raise cash for “our General Election campaign and [get] Keir into Number 10.” One of the prizes? Tea for two with Shadow Cabinet member Jenny Chapman…
Admittedly the prize of tea with one of Starmer’s most senior colleagues stands head and shoulders above some of the other items up for auction, including a signed copy of Sir Keir’s 2021 conference speech that even his own team admitted droned on for far too long.
Politicians selling access to wealthy individuals is a practise as old as time, yet Labour continually gets on their high horse about it. £3,000 to meet the Chancellor of the Exchequer at Tory conference is a hell of a steal given Labour charges £5,000 to donors in return for dinners with Shadow Cabinet members…
John Rentoul has been forced to apologise to Labour MP Jon Trickett for accusing him of “condoning violence against police officers” in a now-deleted tweet. On May 7th Rentoul tweeted that Trickett had used the “Kill the Bill” slogan which implied “…support for murdering police officers”.
Three months on he’s been forced to accept the MP wasn’t “condoning violence against police officers and that he was using this phrase to reference the Police and Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill.”
A personal apology to @Jon_Trickett. Please retweet pic.twitter.com/OgTxAaYuoz
— John Rentoul (@JohnRentoul) August 6, 2021
He accepts the tweet was wrong and sincerely apologises “for the distress and upset that my tweet has caused.” It was so distressing Trickett decided to provide a receipt of the offending tweet in a reply to Rentoul’s apology – without which Guido may have struggled to find it in the first place…
Labour MPs Ian Lavery and Jon Trickett took part in a hard-left Zoom call yesterday which saw both admonish Keir Starmer’s flaccid statement yesterday afternoon, in which the Labour party called for the closure of Zoos while shying away from demanding the closure of schools. Former Labour party chair Lavery – who in November threatened Starmer with a leadership challenge – ranted:
“And what’s happened today? We’ve been waiting on a comment from Keir today and he’s saying we should have a lockdown. In his comments I believe he’s saying we should be closing zoos – what on earth are we talking about?! Closing zoos and not closing schools? Am I missing something here? Am I missing something?… I cannot fathom it out I’m afraid.”
Trickett joined in the damning criticism, saying “there’s no logic to the position where we now are and hopefully wiser heads will prevail quickly. A country without an effective, challenging, demanding opposition leadership is a country in great difficulty”. Guido is amazed to find himself agreeing with the Corbynista MPs. As Guido wrote earlier, Jeremy Hunt is currently doing a better job at scrutiny than the actual Leader of the Opposition…
Staying on message during an election is the single most important part of any media strategy. It appears Labour have made this job considerably more difficult for them by not actually agreeing a line to take on whether they wanted this election in the first place, and whether they were responsible for it happening. Guido reckons the answer’s fairly obvious in the eyes of the public…
Appearing on GMB, Jon Trickett proudly boasted it was “us that triggered [the general election]”. However earlier this morning on Kay Burley, McDonnell implied Labour had been bounced into it by the Lib Dems and SNP, saying “it was the only choice we had”. Very kind of Labour to set the tone of their campaign so early on…
