On Wednesday, the results of the parliamentary party elections for backbench committees were announced. What they reveal is an organised attempt by a faction of the party to challenge Jeremy Corbyn across the whole range of policies. Debate on policy is of course encouraged and welcome, but what is less welcome is a systematic attempt to undermine the leadership of someone who only a few weeks ago received the biggest ever mandate of any party leader.
All the faction lacks is a name. Now that the era of New Labour has been pronounced dead, and being a Blairite, in the view of Progress, is “tired, dated and redolent of a time that has been and gone“, they certainly need a new description. They cannot, with a straight face, be described as “for the Common Good” – in any case you can read the full details of everything Labour for the Common Good (aka “the Resistance”) talk about here, plus I hear Chukka is actively engaged in Streatham on reinventing himself again (back on the ‘soft left’).
The answer is perhaps to call them “the 4.5%”. Eleven out of seventeen new chairs nominated Liz Kendall, and the rest include shadow cabinet refuseniks Caroline Flint (who presumably would have nominated Kendall had she not been standing for the deputy leadership at the time), Chris Leslie, the undisputed leading pro-Austerity advocate, and Shabana Mahmood. Continue reading
Why hasn’t Labour’s social team raised a huge hue and cry against Osborne’s openly declared intention to introduce a cap next year on total welfare spending covering about £100bn of benefits, irrespective of the massive increase in destitution brought about by his very own policies? Why hasn’t Labour’s economic team raised an equal cry of anger against Osborne’s plans for a £180bn deficit reduction by 2018, which would bring public spending to its lowest ebb as a share of GDP since 1948?
