Michael Chessum, former member of the Momentum steering committee…
“Momentum’s role as a brilliantly effective mobilising tool masked a lack of internal democracy that rotted its grassroots potential. The party management machine, familiar to long-suffering party activists of any era, shut down attempts to bring in open selections for MPs and ensured that key decisions were taken by professionals behind closed doors, not by members. This time it was staffed by people who read the Morning Star rather than Progress magazine.”
Speaking to Matt Chorley on BBC 5 Live, Shabana Mahmood was asked what the naughtiest thing she has ever done is:
“I think I took a drag on a cigarette when I was a teenager, when I shouldn’t have done, but it did trigger an asthma attack. And so I figured that was God telling me, don’t smoke.”