Monday 27 September 2021

What Matters

What is the point of the Labour Party if it will not even campaign for subsistence levels of the minimum wage and of statutory sick pay? What, indeed?

"What matters is winning and being in government," Alison McGovern has just told Newsnight. And there it is. The end in itself. The attainment of the trappings of office. Winning for the sake of it, like football. Except that they are far more passionate about football. Such are the Labour Rightists of my generation, and if anything they are now even worse than they were 20 years ago.

Although he seems to have attracted a markedly smaller crowd than Andy McDonald, John Bercow has been doing the Conference fringe thing tonight. As soon as he was refused a peerage, then we knew that he would try and reenter the Commons, and as soon as Keir Starmer replaced Jeremy Corbyn, then we knew that he would try and become a Labour MP.

He obviously wants Islington North, but I challenge him to declare his interest in the apparently totemic seat of North West Durham. Half the Labour Party has moved here, but none of them would be as acceptable to Starmer as the former Secretary of the Race and Repatriation Committee of the Monday Club would be.

2 comments:

  1. You versus Bercow, we could sell tickets.

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    Replies
    1. I'd want my cut, as you no doubt already know.

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