6 May 2021
Diary of a Corbynista
Piles of Dead Cats
by Don Urquhart
29 April
Email from a friend who is usually well abreast of the news:
Your diary quotes with the ********* surprised me – I didn’t realise there was that angle as well as the money nonsense – Boris really is a star.
The money nonsense was a dead cat to divert attention. It worked a treat.
So here it is again. There are alleged to be three witnesses prepared to testify that Johnson yelled:
No more f*cking lockdowns – let the Bodies Pile High in Their Thousands.
If that is true it could cost him support.
30 April
Message Board responses to Corbynista in Shaw Sheet 276:
Smoothie:
The week does go around quickly. I’m surprised you’re not saying that your man Keir should go in hard on the fact that John Lewis has closed multiple stores under Boris’ watch which combined with Carrie classifying them as naff would surely have scores of Tory voters being turned off Boris and looking for another home for their vote. The fancy legal footwork doesn’t work…
Sunlounger:
Mr Starmer looks too clean and clinical. He does not have the stench of the gutter about him like Johnson does. The British voters seem to like Johnson acting like the drunken know-it-all at the pub. Mind you, perhaps he isn’t acting. Who knows? Probably another reason the voters like him.
Legal Eagle:
I think Corbynista is wrong – many people outside the Westminster bubble, including Telegraph and Mail readers, will eventually be unwilling to ignore the drip, drip, drip of allegations.
1 May
Early in 2020 the Labour Party produced a report entitled:
The work of the Labour Party’s Governance and Legal Unit in relation to anti-Semitism, 2014 – 2019.
Anyone reading the document might wonder if there was a conspiracy comprising senior Party officials and politicians to sabotage Labour’s election chances.
It was leaked and Sir Keir Starmer initiated an inquiry ostensibly into the behaviour of Labour Party staff as highlighted in the report and also the circumstances of it being leaked.
Martin Forde and his panel (the Forde Inquiry) were due to report by the end of 2020.
Martin Forde has intimated that he is unable to publish while the Information Commissioner’s Office is undertaking its own investigation.
In response to a Freedom of Information Request by Skwawkbox, the ICO has made it clear that the ban on publishing the Forde Report does not come from them so it looks very much as if Starmer’s Labour Party is suppressing the apparently independent inquiry that they instituted.
If you would like to judge for yourself the Labour Party’s report is here.
2 May
Forget the North-South divide, Johnson’s “levelling up” is about buying votes in marginal seats. The Conservative candidate for Hartlepool says as much:
To secure the change Hartlepool needs, you need to vote Conservative.
You would have thought an investment priority might be areas of severe child poverty but sadly these tend to be in solid Labour seats.
Big Issue explains:
The London borough of Tower Hamlets has the highest child poverty rates in the UK, with 55.4 per cent of children living below the poverty line after their families pay housing costs according to research commissioned by End Child Poverty. This is closely followed by other London boroughs Newham, at 50.3 per cent, then Barking and Dagenham at 49.9 per cent.
3 May
In other news Johnson is set to announce a £200 million spend on a new Royal Yacht. Whether you think this is long overdue or a misuse of funds, it diverts attention from the Prime Minister letting the virus rip and dodging corruption allegations. The timing of hopeful noises around Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe might have a similar rationale.
4 May
I have thought from day one that the EHRC report into anti-Semitism in the Labour Party was a travesty, so it is reassuring to discover that Sir Geoffrey Bindman, a lawyer specialising in human rights has written a book agreeing with me. It is being launched at an online event on Thursday May 13th. Here’s the link:
5 May
Today is the 200th anniversary of Napoleon’s death. Many and various are the cultural resonances of the great Corsican. In this country these are generally negative. Take for example that great parable of populist failure Animal Farm where Napoleon the pig was the strongest and most appalling ruler. More recently one of the most loved TV heroes, Captain Mainwaring was regularly addressed as Napoleon by ARP Warden Hodges, whose diagnosis – delusions of grandeur, was not way off the mark.
