Labour’s line on its Head of Operations organising for one hundred staffers to fly to the US to campaign against Trump is that it’s just politics nerds doing politics nerd things – nothing to do with the Party, let alone the government. Must be why the original post was deleted, then…
The government is meant to stay neutral: “Whoever the American people elect, the United Kingdom government will work with them very closely.” Starmer and Lammy have made pains to keep the line impartial…
One minister didn’t get the memo. Kirsty McNeill is hosting an election night “Come on Kamala” Rally on November 5th with the Labour Women’s Network. “Labour For Kamala” badges have been produced to distribute to staffers. The event’s advert says:
“Before the results start to come in and the chaos begins, join LWN and special guests including Kirsty McNeill, MP for Midlothian and the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Scotland and Amy Lamé, broadcaster, performer and outgoing London Night Czar, for an evening of analysis, predictions, taking in the moment and cheering on Kamala.”
Failed London Night Tsar Lamé is jumping back into politics after leaving her politically restricted post in City Hall at the end of October. That must be why only 18 people have bothered to RSVP…
This morning the Today Programme brought on the BBC’s North America editor, Sarah Smith, to give her analysis of Tim Walz‘ running-mate speech at the Democratic National Convention. What followed was pure fawning praise:
“It was a very impressive performance from somebody who is not an experienced public speaker and he gave the energy of your favorite high school teacher suddenly stepping up to the plate and telling the country things could be better I thought it was really interestingly brief which is always merciful in political speeches and extremely effective and he showed that this is a man who is a campaigner who is ready for the national stage even though I think most people in that hall had not heard of him three weeks ago.“
Nick Robinson tried to offer some counter by weakly adding that Republicans call Walz a “phony“. Smith was having none of it:
“That was a man dripping in authenticity that we saw appear there tonight. Somebody really very very unaffected by the national stage who looked entirely what he is: A former high school teacher a former football coach, the governor of a small state who’s proud of what he’s achieved in that state and who wants to bring things to America. There is nothing about him that seems contrived in any way at all. Now maybe you don’t want somebody bringing the ‘big dad’ energy to the campaign maybe you don’t like his small-town values but I think it would be very difficult to describe him as a phony of any kind.“
Robinson then also gave up with the impartiality malarkey and said Walz is a “very good warm-up act too“. To much agreement:
“He does, and and he was talking a lot about how proud he is of Harris and how great she will be for the country and he was a very very effective spokesperson for her.“
The entire 23-minute episode of Smith’s Americast episode about JD Vance’s RNC speech featured only impartial, to-be-expected coverage. Guido leaves it up to co-conspirators to decide whether today’s coverage corresponds with the BBC’s impartiality guidelines…
Trump returned to Twitter last night ahead of his major interview with Elon Musk on the platform. After 42 minutes of delay caused by what Musk called a co-ordinated attack on Twitter, Trump launched into all his favourite topics pretty much unabetted by the billionaire. The main points:
- Trump will return to Butler, where he was almost killed, in October.
- Biden didn’t want to go, it was a coup. He certainly didn’t look happy about it…
- Kamala is avoiding interviews because she can’t have a normal conversation.
- Harris is a “radical left lunatic”. Just look at her tax policies…
- Biden has jacked up inflation to intolerable levels.
- ‘Border tsar’ Harris failed to tackle the border crisis.
- The US is going to build an iron dome.
- Kamala will fail to deal with Jinping, Putin, or Jong-Un who are at the “top of their game.“
- Trump told Putin not to invade Ukraine.
Harris’ team attacked the event’s tech problems and Musk: “Trump’s entire campaign is in service of people like Elon Musk and himself — self-obsessed rich guys who will sell out the middle class and who cannot run a livestream in the year 2024.” Let’s see how she performs when she sits down for an interview…
In the early hours of the morning freed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich landed at Joint Airbase Andrews in Maryland. The freed political prisoners were greeted by Biden and Harris…
The prisoner exchange included Gershkovkich, who had been held for 490 days on fantasy espionage charges, the former US marine Paul Whelan, arrested in 2018 after being accused of spying, and the journalist and Radio Free Europe’s Alsu Kurmasheva. Russia got eight nationals in return, three held in US prisons. Andrew Sullivan said that opposition politician Alexei Navalny was meant to be part of the deal…
The prisoner swap took place in Ankara yesterday. Welcome home.
Joe Biden gave his long-awaited explanatory address last night as he waved goodbye to his hopes for a second term. In slow, hoarse notes he said everything he’d done “merited a second term” but he made his decision in the interests of “saving our democracy.” If that’s the energy he could manage in his first public appearance since Sunday it’s no wonder the Democrat establishment moved quickly to replace him…
Biden basically refused to acknowledge his age or declining cognitive ability apart from saying that “fresher voices” were needed. Somehow not giving the impression he’s too thrilled to pass the torch to Cackling Kamala…
David Lammy has just been on BBC Breakfast to talk about Starmer’s EPC summit today. Apart from saying Labour isn’t trying to rejoin the EU because “we’re only two weeks into government”, Lammy was asked about his previous comments on Trump. Lammy called Trump a “neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath” in a 2018 Time opinion piece and said he would be one of “tens of thousands on the streets, protesting against our government’s capitulation to this tyrant in a toupee“. Hysterical…
Naga Munchetty asked: “How does that set up a relationship for you and him if he wins the election?” Lammy’s answer: We’ve all done it…
Lammy said “you’re going to struggle to find any politician who has not had things to say about Donald Trump in his first term.” David Cameron called him a “misogynist” and JD Vance himself had choice words for his now running mate. Unfortunately millions of Americans made the guy President and are about to again…
The Foreign Secretary tried some other lines, like “Donald Trump has the thickest of skins.” When Munchetty asked him if he would, like Vance, say his comments were a mistake, he refused. That bodes well for the special relationship…
