15 March 2018

Diary of a Corbynista

Corbyn’s leadership qualities in question.  May still talking a good game.

by Don Urquhart

8 March

New Look are planning to close 60 stores and make 980 people redundant.  Businesses come and go, but in the last few weeks there have been a number of high profile failures notably Toys R Us and Maplins which have been around for years and seemed to have an assured niche.  Yesterday my wife broke the ceramic lid of our son’s favourite coffee maker.  Online I ordered a replacement which was delivered by Amazon later in the day.  I understand that this extraordinary company are strategising the fresh food market.  There is something very 1984 about buying every product from a single supplier.

9 March

The attempted murder of Sergei Skripal and his daughter have raised the spectre of state sponsored murder with fingers pointed at Vladimir Putin.  There is much discussion of what to do if a link can be made to the Kremlin with the word “robust” much in use.

There are several regimes that use murder as a means of consolidating power.  How should we deal with them?  Perhaps Donald Trump can show us the way? It looks as if he will be meeting Kim Jong-Un to talk peace later this year.

10 March

I suppose the story lasts longer when you trail the speech before you make it anticipating news coverage both before and after you have made your address.

Today Richard Leonard, the leader of the Scottish Labour Party will present his vision for housing.

He proposes access to a safe, secure, habitable and affordable home for all.

Motherhood and apple pie you might think but set against the Prime Minister’s vision of last week which turned out to be an exposition of the vagaries of the planning process it was a breath of fresh air.

11 March

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is impoverished and also rich in natural materials.  On Friday President Joseph Kabila signed into law a new mining code which will increase the taxes the government collects from the mining companies.  Chief Executives of companies from round the world have been flying in to Kinshasa to talk him round.  Kabila is just not playing the game.  He is meant to be enriching himself and his pals at the expense of the populace not the shareholders of the first world.

12 March

This could be a defining moment for Corbyn’s leadership.

Yesterday Debbie Abrahams was removed as opposition spokeswoman on work and pensions while an “employment issue” is investigated.

She claims that she is the victim of a “bullying culture of the worst kind”.

“I have had no details about the complaint, who it is from, the process or timescales. I have not agreed to stand aside.”

“I will fight this spurious claim and do not rule out taking legal action.”

She had been subjected to “aggressive, intimidating and wholly unprofessional” treatment by “certain individuals in the leader’s office” over the last 10 months.

“My treatment in the last week has shown a bullying culture of the worst kind,” she said. “As such I am making a formal complaint to both the Labour party and parliamentary authorities.”

Whether they know it or not this incident is a godsend for those who claim that the hard left is running the Labour Party.  Corbyn needs to come out fast and hard to answer Debbie Abrahams’ grievances in full.

13 March

The purpose of Her Majesty’s Opposition is to oppose.

In The Commons the Prime Minister issued a challenge to Vladimir Putin.  He should admit responsibility for poisoning the Skripals or explain how the Russian government had allowed Novichok to be used.

After broadly agreeing, Jeremy Corbyn asked whether the Tories would now stop taking money from Russian oligarchs.

Slithering out from under their stones came Cooper, Woodcock and Leslie to question the patriotism of their party leader.

For her part, Theresa May should explain whether the Russian oligarchs’ largesse was aimed at anything other than encouraging the government to block the extension of beneficial ownership transparency to UK tax havens.

14 March

King Lear responds bitterly to his treatment by Goneril and Regan:

I will have such revenges on you both,
That all the world shall — I will do such things —
What they are, yet I know not: but they shall be
The terrors of the earth!

I was reminded of this exercise in impotence while watching our Prime Minister trying to put the frighteners on Vladimir Putin.

I have no wish to see her embarrassed but it does look like another case of talking a good game with nothing to back it up.