Guido’s glad to see Zarah Sultana has quickly recovered from her crippling phobia of maskless crowds. Last night, the Labour MP attended the glitzy MOBO Awards in her home city of Coventry, with thousands of attendees sipping on champagne and enjoying performances from dozens of top artists. Zarah had a fantastic night mingling with the star-studded crowd, although unfortunately it looks like she left her mask at home…
While masks are not legally mandated in the social setting Zarah risked her life at last night, it was only a month ago when Sultana appeared on Politics Live to lament how the number of maskless MPs left her feeling “incredibly unsafe in the chamber“:
“When I look across the benches, and I see most of the Tories not wearing masks, it makes me feel unsafe, and it makes my colleagues feel unsafe…there are vulnerable MPs also sitting there, and I think it’s a dangerous message to send to the rest of the country.”
Zarah went on to say that the mask debate was “purely ideological“. Funny how that works…
Well done to Laing for handling it without kicking Sultana out – means she can’t claim martyrdom status among her social media fans…
On Politics Live this afternoon firecracker Julia Hartley-Brewer and the ever-opinionated Zarah Sultana had a very entertaining bust up over masks. Sultana claimed she feels
“…incredibly unsafe in the chamber when I’m sitting there wearing a mask and I look across the benches and I see most of the Tories not wearing masks. It makes me feel unsafe, it makes my colleagues feel unsafe.”
Julia could not help but laugh in incredulity pointing out that masks were no where to be seen at the packed and crowded Labour Party conference. Guido cannot understand why Zarah feels so unsafe in the House when she is seemingly so at ease whilst at Labour Party conference.
Guido did some digging and found that Covid case rates in Brighton – when the above photographs from Labour Party conference were taken – hovered at around 229.0 cases per 100,000 people. In comparison case rates today in Central Westminster are 181.1 per 100,000 people. Given this, Zarah’s fears seem unjustified.
Sultana’s performative political point scoring has once again been unmasked…
Last night Zarah Sultana came out with a classic loony left take: that the scenes of protesting in Cuba over the anti-civil and economic freedom regime there is actually the fault of imperialist America.
The US has waged economic war on Cuba for nearly 60 years. Its blockade of the country is estimated to have cost Cuba $753,000,000,000+.
— Zarah Sultana MP (@zarahsultana) July 12, 2021
If you care about Cuba, the key demand is for Washington to end its economic war on the country, just as the UN has repeatedly demanded.
Guido struggles to see how Zarah’s claim that those who “want to help Cuba” should focus on the US would end the scenes of mass violence by Cuban authorities against their citizens. It’s particularly brazen given just last week Sultana boasted about voting against the government’s Police and Crime Bill on the basis it was “an attack on our democratic right to protest”. Sultana is silent about the Cuban dictatorship’s arrest and beating of a protesting priest…
It seems that for Zarah the right of people to protest only extends to Western citizens complaining about capitalist systems; railing against the failing communist Cuban state just isn’t cricket. So far more than 100 people have been arrested or are missing on the island following Sunday’s protests. No doubt Sultana’s 401 majority will once again value her campaigning on issues directly affecting them…
The Labour Party has come down hard on England cricketer Ollie Robinson, fully backing the ECB’s decision to suspend the bowler over his historically racist and sexist tweets. Labour MP and Shadow Culture secretary Jo Stevens said:
“It is right that the ECB takes the action that they think is necessary and appropriate to tackle racism and other forms of discrimination in their sport.”
Guido wonders why Labour’s zero tolerance policy towards racism does not extend to its own MPs. The hypocrisy is palpable…
The following is a list of Labour MPs and some of their “historic”, offensive social media posts. Guido thinks it’s time to remind the Labour Party of its own dirty laundry and wonders whether Jo Stevens will be as quick to condemn and suspend her Labour colleagues…
- Ian Byrne, MP for Liverpool, West Derby faced no consequences for several tweets that even he admitted were “unacceptable”. In 2015 Byrne tweeted about businesswoman Michelle Mone, telling his followers to “hit the cu*t where it hurts”. Byrne fell into disrepute again in 2019 after posting that “Everton wives are getting the suitcases out of the loft” – a thinly veiled reference to wife-beating. Guido wonders why Byrne’s sexist tweets are seen as acceptable by the Labour Party whilst Robinson’s are not…
- Just this morning Guido revealed that Labour MP and Shadow Minister for Community Cohesion Naz Shah, was filmed speaking at a Pro-Palestine rally in Bradford, where chants of “lift the curse of the Jews off the Muslims in Palestine!”, were shouted by protestors, in Arabic. This isn’t the first time this Labour MP has fallen into hot water. In 2015 she wrote that Israeli’s should face “transportation” out of the Middle East and suggested that Israel should be “relocated” to America. The Labour Party reinstated Naz after a brief suspension period. Guido wonders whether Naz will forgive Ollie Robinson, like she was so kindly forgiven by the Labour Party…
- Zarah Sultana received a slap on the wrist after it was revealed she told a pro-Israel tweeter to “jump off a cliff”, claimed she would “celebrate” the death of Netanyahu, Bush, and Blair, and compared the Holocaust to what she termed the “Muslim Holocaust” in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Palestine. Following a huge storm Sultana apologised, writing: “I’m a sorry that I posted these offensive comments on social media as a teenager. I was young and immature.” Sound familiar?
- Angela Rayner was quick to defend, Labour MP Jared O’Mara, who called gay men “poofters”, arguing that he had “changed his views”. Funny that Labour MP Jared O’Mara is allowed to change his views but Ollie Robinson, English cricketer is not…
- Sir Keir Starmer not only forgave but defended Dr. Paul Williams, the Labour Hartlepool by-election candidate, after he asked his followers if they had a “favourite Tory MILF” in 2011. Though Keir conceded the comments were “wrong” he continued to support Paul Williams. Smells like hypocrisy…
- Labour’s Steve Reed received no punishment after describing a Jewish Tory donor as a “puppet master”. Like Ollie Robinson, Reed apologised “unreservedly” for the tweet. Guido wonders why Robinson’s apology isn’t enough, when Keir was prepared to forgive one of his own so quickly…
It is striking just how many Labour MPs have made offensive comments online and this is just the tip of the iceberg. Labour is very forgiving of their own, less so of teenage cricketers…
This morning, Zarah Sultana accused the Conservatives of attempting to suppress working class votes with the introduction of voter ID laws. According to Sultana, low income voters overwhelming vote for Labour, so any such measure would have to be a deliberate political calculation on the part of the Tories. As Michael Gove immediately pointed out, however, that just isn’t true: low income voters are now more likely to vote Conservative than Labour. Introducing voter ID laws (irrespective of the other arguments against them) would not advantage the Tories as Sultana claims.
Guido made a similar point on Twitter soon after. As YouGov data from 2017 showed, class is no longer a reliable indicator of how people vote – that year, a middle class voter was just as likely to vote Conservative as a working class voter. The political axis of the country has shifted.
Sultana was having none of it, firing back with a graph which depicts ‘working-age voters by income‘, and appears to show that most voters earning less than £29,000 vote Labour. Conveniently ignoring all voters above 65, as though everyone above that age makes millions…
She had to ignore those voters, because otherwise her argument would fall apart. An extensive report by Matthew Goodwin and Oliver Heath for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) revealed just how far Labour has drifted from its traditional working class base:
“The Conservatives are now more popular with people on low incomes than high incomes. Labour is as popular with the wealthy as with those on low incomes…Low-income voters, who have been central to driving recent political change, played a central role in putting the Conservatives into power and Labour into opposition.”
In the 2019 election, the Tories scored a 15-point lead over Labour amongst people of all ages on low incomes. In fact, they’re actually more popular with working class voters than with the wealthy. The Conservatives aren’t the party of the rich, and Labour aren’t the party of the poor.
If Labour ever want to win another election, they need to understand all this. Judging by the latest polls, they’re a long way off…
