There’s still no love lost between Liz Kendall and Jeremy Corbyn. Both appeared on Robert Peston’s ITV show last night, and clearly the wounds of 2019 haven’t yet healed for Liz Kendall, who tore into Corbyn for the scale of Labour’s defeat and his total failure to root out antisemitism within the party. As usual for the absolute boy, he repeatedly claimed the problem had been “grossly exaggerated” and refused to apologise. “He only has himself to blame”, Kendal seethed…
Kendall then proceeded to list all positive ways Sir Keir has improved Labour since Corbyn left, claiming:
“I am proud that Keir Starmer has taken firm action on this issue since he became leader of the Labour Party, and that he has changed the Labour Party since Jeremy Corbyn was leader. That he said that we love our country, that we’re proud of our armed forced, we stand up for NATO… people who think that the problem was exaggerated are actually part of the problem themselves…”
Corbyn also vowed to return as the MP for Islington North after the next election – “1000%” chance, apparently. Stone-faced, Kendall replied ,“I might put it down the other end of the scale.” Ouch.
Conor Burns’s defence of the PM’s lockdown birthday party – that he was “ambushed with a cake” – may have received a Twitter ribbing, including from Nigella herself, though it’s hardly the most unbelievable claim. The PM himself was once caught on camera in exactly such a situation back on Peston’s show in 2016. At the time he’d been facing a barrage over his “have cake and eat it” quote regarding Brexit. Who ambushed the then-foreign secretary with the cake? None other than Robert Peston’s co-presenter, Allegra Stratton…
Clearly in no mood to mince her words, Ruth Davidson tore into the government last night over plans to introduce mandatory photo ID at future elections. Appearing on Peston, Davidson said:
“I think in terms of this particular part of the Queen’s Speech, I think it’s total bollocks. And I think it’s trying to give a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist, and that makes it politics as performance. And I think given where we are, and the year we’ve had, we’ve got real problems to solve in this country. And the idea that this is some sort of legislative priority, I think is for the birds.”
Davidson then took to Twitter to add that “there are bigger threats from agents outside our borders than from someone who forgets to take their drivers’ licence (if they have one) to a polling station”. David Davis said essentially the same thing; Guido wouldn’t be surprised to see this argument carry on for a while yet…
“I’ve got to talk to you, I’m afraid, about poo” probably wasn’t the line of questioning DCMS Secretary Oliver Dowden was expecting when he agreed to appear on Peston last night. Asking about the opening of public toilets in line with increasing freedom to visit parks and other attractions, Dowden did a cracking job of keeping a straight face as one of the nation’s supposed top political broadcasters asked him whether the public can poo in a loo at a zoo. The public now has clarification that it is not government policy to allow excretion in public parks – where would we be without Peston…
On Tuesday evening, ITV Political Editor Robert Peston made extraordinary and widely shared claims that “there is no shortage of the relevant reagents” – implying that the Government was either lying or simply hadn’t bothered to ask around. His tweet has attracted over 14,000 retweets and 20,000 likes.
His single anonymous Chemical Industries Association source could be right. On the other hand, Guido has pulled together some other people who might just know what they are talking about:
Whilst he later acknowledged that there was a global problem, Peston has still not deleted the original thread. Inevitably his later correction only got a tiny bit of attention, with fraction of the interaction.
Guido understands that the predominant reason Germany has a much higher testing rate is fortunately for them the specific diagnostics facilities needed to test for Covid-19 have a large number of branches in Germany, meaning domestic production just happened to be enormous to begin with. The UK will at least be very well served if any future pandemic requires a large supply of snide punditry…
Last night Peston had to be corrected again by Deputy Chief Medical Officer Jonathan Van Tam on his understanding of which tests can do what, this morning Peston tweets that he “was slightly taken aback at the ferocity of the Deputy Chief Medical Officer’s response”. Painful viewing, see for yourself…
Isn’t it about time big news outlets had their health, rather than political teams leading on Coronavirus coverage?..
The endorsements just keep flying in for Boris’s new Cabinet, it was John McDonnell’s turn on Peston last night to hail it as the “most right wing Cabinet in my lifetime” and predict that we’ll see some “pretty hardline neo-liberal policies come out”. High praise indeed from Britain’s most left-wing ever Shadow Chancellor. McDonnell astutely notes that they will be “differentiated certainly from the Labour Party”…
Whether it really suits Corbyn “down to the ground” is another matter, he may end up finding out sooner than he really wants. New Leader of the Commons Jacob Rees-Mogg told Peston a general election was not a “government objective” but was “impossible to rule out” given the Parliamentary arithmetic. The way Boris ruthlessly stamped his authority on the Cabinet yesterday suggests he is more than prepared to face down any potential rebels. With an election if necessary…
McDonnell couldn’t even say Labour would definitely back Remain, meanwhile Corbyn continues to wander round aimlessly calling for a general election while refusing to table a vote of no confidence in the new government. Labour’s Marxist leadership may be in for a sharp shock now they’re no longer getting an easy ride against May’s muddled centrism…