23 September 2021

Diary of a Corbynista

Pre Conference Rumblings

by Don Urquhart

15 September

Everything was going according to plan in PMQ’s.  The PM had his carefully scripted replies to Starmer, generally a mixture of halftruths, insults and evasions delivered with great gusto to the delight of his sycophantic followers.  Then Sir Roger Gale stood up – a genial old buffer of a Conservative MP who had the temerity to raise a real and pressing issue.  Thanet Earth, a food producer had been forced to throw away £320,000 worth of tomatoes because there were no pickers and no drivers.  What was the Right Honourable Gentleman going to do about it? Frightened looks on the faces of Johnson, Patel and Sunak.  Johnson replied that the government were “taking steps” which when translated into English means “doing nothing”.

16 September

We have 200 deaths per day from Coronavirus.  It is clearly out of control and getting worse.  And yet the government and media tell us there is a world leading plan and we are encouraged to take off our masks and herd our children into classrooms to spread the thing.

17 September

Is this the year the Labour Party backs Proportional Representation?  For the upcoming conference there are 144 conference motions supporting PR, 314 Constituency Parties and 83% of members are in favour.

18 September

Michael Gove is now the Minister responsible for Levelling Up.  If he follows his usual pattern he will come up with a concrete and deliverable plan with clear objectives.  But it will be based on an incomplete analysis, which he will propound in a wordy and aggressive manner.  And after he is removed, his legacy will be disastrous.  Just look at our education system.

19 September

Rosie Duffield is the MP for Canterbury.  She will not be attending the Labour Party Conference later this week because she has received online threats.  It’s not clear what she has been threatened with or by whom although she claims that she is hated by LGBT+ Labour.  She has made remarks which offend transgender activists.  There’s plenty of virtue signalling from Labour bigwigs but I am missing in the reporting any activity by the police in pursuing the people issuing threats particularly as Ms Duffield seems to know who they are.

20 September

The Government is about to bail out energy companies which have been caught out by rising gas prices.  To the unsophisticated observer this looks like another case of privatising profits and nationalising losses, a bit like the railways.  You can bet the senior executives of these companies have organised their personal exits more efficiently than their companies’ hedging strategies.

21 September

Starmer is planning to change the method of electing the Labour leader from One Member One Vote (OMOV) to an electoral college approach – 1/3 Parliamentary Party, 1/3 Unions, 1/3 Constituencies.  This reverses the 2014 changes under Ed Miliband.  If it gets through it will be the last straw for many democratic socialists in the party.