Michael Dugher shot straight back at Owen Jones after the Corbynista commentator criticised the former Labour MP for swearing on Twitter. Jones accused Dugher of “online abuse” – somewhat ironic since the discussion was about Jones’s Angela Smith pile-on.
Speaking of online abuse, here is former Labour MP turned @UK_Music CEO @MichaelDugher! pic.twitter.com/dIyJHQVzfY
— Owen Jones🌹 (@OwenJones84) April 18, 2018
Yes. You’re quite right. I apologise unreservedly for swearing. You tedious sanctimonious fucker 🐈 https://t.co/A6md3HbXcr
— Michael Dugher (@MichaelDugher) April 18, 2018
Owen was triggered:
I am so embarrassed these sad inadequate thugs once ran the Labour Party and it will never, ever be allowed to happen again. https://t.co/zoiQQrcaN6
— Owen Jones🌹 (@OwenJones84) April 18, 2018
Labour used to be ruled by a gangster like clique who parachuted each other into constituencies they’d never heard of before, who thought the membership and trade unions were an embarrassment, who called anyone more leftwing than Genghis Khan a “Trot”, who now pose as victims.
— Owen Jones🌹 (@OwenJones84) April 18, 2018
Dugher speaking for most Labour MPs there…
Michael Dugher on how Corbyn would have responded to Hitler:
“Suspect Jeremy in 1939 would have argued that the League of Nations needed more time to investigate “alleged” German aggression in Poland and called for the violence “on all sides” to cease.”
When Corbynista “trolling fake news nob head” Skwawkbox asked UK Music boss Michael Dugher why he was at the Brit Awards, the former Labour MP responded in characteristic fashion:
In general terms. Of course, we’d welcome his clarification that it was for the May/Mail barbs and not just the awards
— The SKWAWKBOX (@skwawkbox) February 22, 2018
Look at this fucking arsehole: demanding “clarification” as to why I was at the Brit Awards. Not that it is any of your business, but I’m happy to clarify that I was there “for the awards,” you trolling fake news nob head. https://t.co/w7c6bNXlNi
— Michael Dugher (@MichaelDugher) February 22, 2018
Sadly the volume of sweary anonymous quotes from Labour MPs has plummeted since Dugher left Westminster…
Guido has long had a grudging respect for Michael Dugher’s straight-talking approach to politics. Out of Westminster and unleashed, he’s letting Corbynistas know what he really thinks:
Some good points, well made…
Owen Smith is particularly desperate to try and win Wales and shore up his vote on home turf to avoid personal humiliation. When it comes to events and phone banking his campaign is very Welsh-centric – he’s focusing on South Wales disproportionately. Make that a hell of a lot of effort for a small part of the electorate.
In the latest of many South Wales campaign events Owen made a “keynote” speech in Rhondda yesterday to a handful of people – he just can’t break out of the Valleys. If you look at his campaign pictures (see below) from the event they are all tight on him because the crowd was so small.
Truth is he’s not liked much in Wales. Welsh Labour leader Carwyn Jones has been silent and no Welsh minister has backed him. His own Pontypridd Assembly Member and Welsh Government Counsel General, Mick Antoniw, is backing Corbyn. Former Pontypridd AM and Welsh environment minister Jane Davidson, who knew Owen and worked with him closely when he was first elected, is also backing Corbyn and tweeting Owen attacks. Reportedly the only CLP in Wales to nominate him was fixed…
In private the campaign knows it has lost and fears it may lose by over 60% to 40%. His campaign manager Dugher is said to be arguing for a strategy shift to a tough bare-knuckled fight, hitting Corbyn hard, perhaps having learnt his lesson from managing Andy Burnham’s disastrous soft-left leadership campaign. The whole idea of projecting Smith as a “competent Corbynista” has been disastrous from the off because nobody believed the “childishly transparent“ lie. Owen Smith does not however want to tack to the centre and tell the membership hard-truths, because he needs to “protect my brand” for the future. Oh boyo…
Could this dilemma within the campaign explain the vitriol of that Dan Hodges polemic on Sunday against “spineless, incoherent, incompetent“ Owen? Hodges is close to Dugher…
UPDATE: A source gets in touch to clarify that initially Dugher was for all the full-on lefty campaign because he thought that’s where he/Andy screwed up last time, “If Andy had been more left-wing Jeremy wouldn’t have had space to emerge. Problem is it’s the right strategy for twelve months ago. Doesn’t work now Corbyn is out of the bottle which they now accept.”
It is all (finally) starting to kick off as Labour rapidly descends into internecine war over the slotting of Michael Dugher. Labour MP Tom Blenkinsop has gone after Ken:
Who's Livingstone trying to fool. Get him off the NEC. https://t.co/BzpoqQM9lt
— Tom Blenkinsop (@TomBlenkinsop) January 5, 2016
And so has his colleague Graham Jones:
.@MichaelDugher With the sacking of Dugher, traditional working class Labour is dying. pic.twitter.com/qFZGZmJ4v6
— Graham Jones MP (@GrahamJones_MP) January 5, 2016
Jones and Momentum chief Jon Lansman are meanwhile having a right old barney:
@jonlansman Your comments are undermining the Labour Party. @MichaelDugher speaks up for working class Labour. @jeremycorbyn @andyburnhammp
— Graham Jones MP (@GrahamJones_MP) January 5, 2016
Fiiiiiiiight!
UPDATE: Top Corbyn ally Cat Smith and moderate standard-bearer Chris Leslie trade blows on the Daily Politics:
