Wednesday 5 April 2017

Less Than Blasts From The Past

Tom Watson is in a unique position. For 20 years after the death of John Smith, the traditional Labour Right was as dispossessed as the Left was. Neither is going to be dispossessed again without a fight.

Indeed, Watson and Jeremy Corbyn owe their positions in no small measure to the same person, Alex Halligan, as well as, of course, to the votes of very large numbers of the same people.

More broadly, like the MPs who attack Corbyn, the MPs who attack Ken Livingstone, need to walk down the streets of their own constituencies with him, to see who was recognised and who was not.

That would make the most hilarious television.

Lord Levy, meanwhile, has been let out of wherever it is that he is kept the rest of the time. Few people in modern times have brought the Labour Party into more disrepute than he has.

All Prime Ministers have their little courts, of course. But it is impossible to think of another who was surrounded by quite as undistinguished, and by quite as downright crooked, a bunch as Tony Blair managed.

With Alastair Campbell all over the place these days, and with Levy now reimposing himself on the public consciousness, by whom else are we soon to be delighted? Carole Caplin? Peter Foster?

After all, either of those deserves to be taken with exactly as much seriousness as either Levy or Campbell. Or, indeed, Blair.

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