Tagged with Snobbery

Porn, fags and Big Macs: Labour and the ethics of business donations

Corbyn and the Big MacBack in 2002, New Labour accepted a £100,000 donation from Daily Express proprietor Richard Desmond, a man who made his original fortune from printing pornographic publications under such lurid titles as The Very Best of Mega Boobs and – hey, let’s not be squeamish, because Blair certainly wasn’t – Spunk Loving Sluts. Questioned on the issue, cabinet minister John Reid retorted:

If you asking if we are going to sit in moral judgment and have a political judgment on those who contribute to the Labour Party, the answer is no.”

And there you have it. Business bungs to Labour were at that time officially a morality-free zone, in which even political calculations played no part. One wonders what the current crop of feminist Labour MPs – the ones that routinely indict Corbyn for alleged low-level non-violent misogyny, even as they threaten to knife him in the front – would have made of that one? Continue reading →

Labour and the Big Mac: Snobbery or principle?

Corbyn and the Big MacWhat kind of company should be allowed to have a corporate stand at Labour Party conference? Should all-comers be taken provided they stump up the readies, or as a minimum are they expected to subscribe to a set of standards around employment relations, trade union recognition, and ethical practices (whatever they are)? I ask because a row is being stoked by the usual moaners about Labour’s decision to refuse a stand (worth £30,000) at this year’s conference in Liverpool.

In a typically dishonest article, The Sun says McDonald’s have been “banned”, and Wes Streeting is called upon to denounce the “snobby attitude towards fast-food restaurants and people who work or eat at them.” It’s worth stating at this point there is no suggestion whatsoever that the “banning” took place because NEC members disapprove of fast food. That has been made up by The Sun, and it is disappointing – to put it euphemistically – for Wes and others to join one of our movement’s fiercest enemies in dumping on our party. Continue reading →

Labour candidate unacceptably mocks working class people

Delegates to Labour Students’ National Council on Saturday were shocked to hear terribly snobbish comments by guest speaker Andrew Pakes, Labour’s Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Milton Keynes South (one of the party’s top 106 target seats for the 2015 General Election).

He told a story of encountering two shop stewards from a West Midlands car plant being closed speaking at a conference he attended some years ago. He derided them for being “drunk”, having what he termed “Noddy Holder accents” and being so inarticulate that it was like “listening to someone outside a nightclub.” Continue reading →