Labour leadership contenders: Andy Burnham, Liz Kendall, Jeremy Corbyn, Yvette Cooper Photo: Agency
by Stuart Littlewood
The comedians of the British political ‘establishment’ are out in force desperately trying to block Jeremy Corbyn, who is streaking ahead in the Labour Party leadership race and leaving his rivals spluttering in total disarray.
War crimes loon Tony Blair has once more sounded off against him. Savour for a moment Blair’s pearls of wisdom: “Please understand the danger we are in. The party is walking eyes shut, arms outstretched, over the cliff’s edge to the jagged rocks below.
“If Jeremy Corbyn becomes leader it won’t be a defeat like 1983 or 2015 at the next election. It will mean rout, possibly annihilation.”
Perhaps he needs an appointment with Specsavers. The rest of us can see quite clearly that the Labour Party is already routed and virtally annihilated, especially here in Scotland, its moral compass swinging crazily and its members paralysed.
Then we had to endure Blair’s unpleasant spin-doctor Alistair Campbell, a major player in Labour’s eventual demise, declaring on his blog that “the madness of flirting with the idea of Corbyn as leader has to stop. … it frankly means ABC, Anyone But Corbyn”.
Or should that read BBC, Back in your Box Campbell?
He even went on to suggest: “One of the worst aspects of the so-called Corbynmania is that it is obscuring the solid decent abilities of the other candidates, who are each one of them better than most of the media will acknowledge, and far better equipped for the hard graft of detailed policy-making that has a chance of actually happening.”
Yes Alistair, we saw the devastating fruits of their policy-making at the last election. And the one before that.
Yvette Cooper, wife of Ed Balls the former shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, and one of the leadership contenders, has said Corbyn’s policies are “not credible” and he offers “old solutions to old problems”. She accuses him of “bad economics”, but so far hasn’t come up with any credible answers of her own.
Nor is she likely to. Husband Ed managed to lose his parliamentary seat in May’s General Election. That’s what people think of the Balls/Cooper family’s economics.
Liz Kendall, the nightmarish back-marker in this contest, has just sqwawked her message that electing Corbyn would amount to Labour sending “a resignation letter” to Britain. She, like Cooper, is urging members to use their second and third preferences under the voting system to block Corbyn.
In the meantime senior Labour people are plotting to torpedo Corbyn if he wins. The Daily Telegraph reports that MPs will refuse to back his policies and only 30 would take jobs under him, leaving many shadow ministerial posts unfilled and Labour in a “laughable” position. Yet latest polls give Corbyn as much as 57% of first preference votes – miles ahead of his nearest rival, Andy Burnham.
The Conservatives can’t keep their noses out of it either. Cabinet Office minister Matthew Hancock, calling Corbyn a “damaging throwback” and an “antique”, claims that a Corbyn premiership “comes with a £42 billion price-tag which amounts to £2,400 for every working household”. Hancock ‘s party, meanwhile, is happy to sell off bailed-out RBS to their greedy bankster friends at a thumping loss to the taxpayer of £14 billion.
It so happens that Yvette Cooper emailed me the other day inviting me to share with her my reasons for registering as a Supporter of the Labour Party – something non-members are allowed to do (on payment of £3) in order to take part in the leadership vote. Hell, why not, I thought….
Hello Yvette,
You asked my reason for joining Labour as a registered supporter. Are you sure you wish to hear it?
I will only consider full membership of the Party if Jeremy Corbyn wins the leadership. Corbyn is our best chance of beginning a process to liberate us from the lunatic foreign policies that have caused great carnage, dragged our country into disrepute across the world, undermined our security at home and been an acute embarrassment to decent Britishers. The slavish subservience of successive UK governments to the terror state of Israel and the AIPAC-controlled US is particularly objectionable. When was the UK Goverment given permission to turn itself into a Zionist poodle? And who authorised British MPs to promote the interests of a foreign nuclear power?
The grovelling performance by Andy Burnham, Liz Kendall and your goodself at the recent public meeting co-hosted by the Jewish Chronicle showed what we could expect if any of you sniffed power again. Your continuing support for the regime in Tel Aviv, despite its decades-long rampage of war crimes and crimes against humanity, is indefensible. Your next visit to the Holy Land, I suggest, should NOT be arranged by Friends of Israel and NOT hosted by the Israeli foreign ministry. You should sit down and talk with Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas. Only then will you begin to understand the realities of Israel’s cruel oppression of the Christian communities and their Muslim brothers and sisters. You should arrange to do the same with Hassan Nasrallah of Hezbollah, remembering that these groups were set up to resist Israeli aggression and their political wings are not proscribed in the UK. Then, perhaps, you and your colleagues will stop talking nonsense about Israel’s “need for security” and turning a blind eye to its ruthless and illegal expansionism.
Moreover, taking your country to war is the most serious and perilous thing an MP can do. You and Burnham showed a disturbing lack of judgement and due diligence in voting for the Iraq war and against an inquiry. So, to put it bluntly, there is a serious question-mark over your trustworthiness.
On the economy, I have heard nothing to show you are addressing the urgent need to regenerate British industry and safeguard British skills and know-how. Instead, you seem intent on handing vital investment, development and operational opportunities (e.g. the huge number of offshore wind licences) to foreign corporates and even using the taxpayer to subsidise the profits they take home to Norway, Denmark, Spain, Netherlands, Germany etc. The day you begin to put British business, jobs and workers first is when I might start to take you and your colleagues seriously.
I joined Labour as a supporter because I want to see changes that are radical enough to ‘clean house’. Forget about winning power as if that’s all that matters. Labour must first snap out of their sulk and learn to become an effective Opposition. There’s not a moment to lose.
Aren’t you pleased you asked? Naturally, I won’t go so far as to wish you luck with your campaign.
Kind regards, etc
I wish I’d included this disturbing thought from Israel Shamir:
‘Austerity for all but banksters and the corrupt politicians’ is the motto of the day. The welfare state shrinks, but military budgets expand, and NATO grows despite the austerity. The EU member countries (save Germany) are de-industrialised, their workers lose skills and go into services. A golf caddy is less likely to cause trouble than an industrial worker. Never has democracy felt so much a sham as nowadays.
But she’s not paying attention. Cooper and her colleagues are too busy demonstrating – every hour of every day – why Jeremy Corbyn is heading for a landslide.
Stuart Littlewood
15 August