Yesterday Guido noted that Tom Kibasi, who helped direct Starmer’s leadership bid, had attacked Keir Starmer’s Labour leadership as a “journey to nowhere”, and claimed that “if Starmer were to depart as leader tomorrow, he would not leave a trace of a meaningful political project in his wake”. Fierce criticism from a once staunch ally who expressed delight at Starmer’s victory…
Guido has his suspicions as to why Kibasi is so upset, and it isn’t just because of Starmer’s polling. A revealing excerpt from the book Left Out shows just how instrumental Kibasi was to the Starmer leadership campaign:
“By the time the general election campaign had begun, so too had Starmer’s leadership bid. Early in the campaign he met Parker and Mason again over an Indian takeaway from Westminster institution Kennington Tandoori. Their host was Tom Kibasi…”
“On Monday mornings and Thursday afternoons during the campaign, Starmer headed to chez Kibasi to hammer out [where Labour should go]. It was a professionalised operation from the outset… by the time the exit poll revealed that Corbyn had led Labour to its worst defeat since 1935, Keir Starmer already knew how he would win the leadership election that would follow.”
Kibasi was a key player for Starmer’s campaign – hosting meetings, directing the key advert, and writing lines – yet once the leadership race was over he was passed over for any position on the team. The word awash in virtual Westminster is Kibasi’s new-found ire at Starmer is more personal than it first seemed…
Former Starmer campaign director, Tom Kibasi, on Sir Keir’s dead end leadership…
“just as Ed Miliband had before him, Starmer has attempted a clumsy embrace of “blue Labour” and the politics of faith, flag and family… It is a political dead end. If Starmer were to depart as leader tomorrow, he would not leave a trace of a meaningful political project in his wake.”
A key figure behind Sir Keir’s Labour leadership election victory has taken to the Guardian to decry his current strategy as a “journey to nowhere”. Economist and founder of the IPPR think tank Tom Kibasi wrote last April of his pride in being the director of Starmer’s key election ad, and to subsequently see him elected leader. Less than a year later, however, he opines:
“his first year has seen an unnecessary war on the left and the lack of any authentic vision for the country”
“If Starmer were to depart as leader tomorrow, he would not leave a trace of a meaningful political project in his wake.”
Starmer’s leadership has gone from merely weak to a Shakesperian tragedy: Et tu, Kibasi?
The director of the IPPR left-wing think-tank , Tom Kibasi, has explicitly backed the Labour Party in a Guardian op-ed. He appears to be breaking the rules requiring charities to be non-partisan – an issue on which the Charity Commission has been particularly active of late. In his piece Kibasi doesn’t hold back, writing: “The country cannot afford and should not expect anything less [than a Labour victory]” and Labour’s dire state in the polls “can and must change”. Which seems a tad partisan…
The laws on charitable think tanks explicitly rule out the backing of political parties.
Almost certainly just more fake news from No10. But if true, I look forward to the days of a future Labour government that bangs up all the dodgy right wing networks that take dark money from the US and have undermined our relations with Europe. https://t.co/f2KCvQmu5n
— Tom Kibasi (@TomKibasi) 20 October 2019
No doubt the Charity Commission will have something to say about this lest they again be accused of double-standards again…
