The final dregs of Labour’s broadly disastrous (for the left) conference are still filtering through, with Guido discovering this fairly amusing clip of Richard Burgon parodying Neil Kinnock’s infamous 1985 Militant speech. The audience naturally lapped it up and for Burgon it was a decent performance. It does ring slightly hollow when, unlike Kinnock, Burgon and his merry band of deluded socialists are nowhere near the levers of Labour Party power. The punchline from Burgon did make Guido laugh…
A new report from Labour in Communications – a group of around 1,200 party supporters working across PR, public affairs and communications – has concluded that the antidote to Labour’s 11-year-long electoral woes is to simply stop making new policy announcements and “concentrate on a handful of those already announced“. Which does beg the question of what these “already announced” policies even are, given their “policy roadmap” currently consists of six bullet points…
The report, titled Fit for the Future, also offers a series of helpful guidelines to revive the party’s prospects. Included among them are:
- “Integrating and investing in digital, placing it at the core of the communications strategy”
- “Reintroducing a pledge card of announcements to tie together different policies”
- “Holding shadow cabinet meetings outside of London on a rotational basis to detoxify the party’s London-centric image“
Labour in Communications claims Labour has announced over 200 non-Covid related policies since Starmer became leader. A prize for anyone who came name more than a couple…
Last night the US Electoral College formally elected Joe Biden as President Elect. One passage of his acceptance speech made Guido’s ears prick up. In 1987, Joe Biden dropped out of the Presidential primaries after a plagiarism scandal following a speech where he lifted the words of Neil Kinnock. Last night instead he copied Kinnock’s nemesis – Margaret Thatcher by quoting the words of St Francis of Assisi. Thatcher famously quoted the same passage upon the morning of her election. Now Biden is doing the same upon his.
Guido hopes perhaps he can learn from Maggie’s policy not just her choice of quotes. He did, after all, table a resolution to formally back her in the Falklands war while the White House equivocated…
Since the lockdown came into force last week, along with the emergency powers act being passed, it’s not gone unnoticed by the public that the police have gone ever so slightly maniacal with power. Today South Wales Police have taken to shaming MP Stephen Kinnock for dropping off supplies at his dad, Neil’s, house before having a brief, socially-distanced birthday chat.
Thankfully it seems an amicable relationship has returned between Kinnock and his local police
I’ve just spoken to Chief Constable Matt Jukes to thank @SWPRhondda for their work. We discussed police questioning drivers on the way to work. To be clear, those who can work from home, should. Travel to work for those who can’t work from home is essential travel.
— Chris Bryant (@RhonddaBryant) March 30, 2020
South Wales join a pool of police forces which, in addition to allowing newly-received powers to go to their heads, are going far beyond their legislated-for powers, including:
- Using drones to photograph those doing their daily allowed exercise
- Dyeing a beautiful local lake black to deter tourists
- Dictating to shop owners what are the essential items they can sell
- Telling off shop owners for chalking two-meter lines outside their shops to enforce customer social-distancing
- Claiming outdoor exercise is limited to one hour
The police can’t be given carte blanch to incorrectly interpret the law in their own authoritarian way – far beyond what the Government has actually legislated for…
Guido has noticed an interesting rift in one of the most important Labour dynasties. Former leader Neil Kinnock and his son Stephen are backing Lisa Nandy for the leadership. However, former Ed Miliband aide and Stephen’s sister, Rachel Kinnock, has just signed up to Jess Phillips’ campaign team as the campaign event manager. Guido hopes it all stays civil, for the sake of Christmas dinner. After all, it’s not like family rifts have developed in the Labour Party before…
Yesterday’s Sunday Times reported that Seumas Milne is preparing to argue Jeremy Corbyn should stay on after June 8 if he matches the 30.4% Ed Miliband won in 2015. Vote share is certainly being considered by the Corbyn camp, though there is another argument in their locker. In the past ten days prominent Corbynistas have been making the case that their man should emulate Neil Kinnock, who remained as leader after the 1987 election despite losing heavily with a three-figure Tory majority. One pro-Corbyn source says: “There is a tradition of Labour leaders staying on after elections. Kinnock didn’t [resign] in ’87, Callaghan didn’t in ’79.” A second source says that Corbyn following Kinnock in staying on would be “the reasonable thing to do”. Both Callaghan and Kinnock used their leadership post-election defeat to change the Labour Party’s internal structures. The Corbynistas feel this gives them some justification in doing the same…
There is of course a great irony in Jezza invoking the Kinnock case to stay on. On 14 January 1988, the secretary of the left-wing Campaign Group of MPs told the Guardian they were “considering putting up a candidate against Neil Kinnock for the party leadership”. Who was the lefty so keen to remove a Labour leader who had just lost an election? One Jeremy Corbyn…
