NByNW Diary: Should Corbyn Stay or Should He Go If He Decides Not To Rock the Casbahs?

Friday 27^th November

I’m going to get some letter paper headed up with “It’s been another bad day for Labour”. It seems increasingly useful. After all, no-one can claim that Labour have had a good day, but there’s cacophonous squabbling over whose fault that is.

Here’s what’s happened.

Yesterday, after the Prime Minister’s statement on Syria, the Shadow Cabinet went to go and discuss the matter. There was a split in the opinion. Which was fine. It was decided that a decision would be taken on Monday through the Shadow Cabinet and the Parliamentary Labour Party. So far so good.

Then, Hilary Benn went out and said that there was a “compelling” case for strikes. Two hours later, Jeremy Corbyn wrote a letter to Labour MPs saying that he could not support the strikes because he does not think that they can assist our security.

Cue outrage against Corbyn from Labour MPs, describing this as an attempt to whip up fervour amongst the grassroots pressure group Momentum, in order to scare Labour MPs into voting against their consciences but with the leadership.

Very odd this. It appears that it was wrong of Corbyn to express his opposition, but it was fine for Benn to express his support. Whilst private discussions are ongoing, both men were ill-advised.

Labour Party Members are furious. After all, 6 out of 10 of them voted for this man and they are tired of the Parliamentary Party constantly sniping at him. Furthermore, Labour Party Members are 2 to 1 against the strikes, according to YouGov. Surely, Labour MPs should take this into account?

Ah, but they also need to take into account their constituents, and the same YouGov Poll says that the general public are 2 to 1 in favour of the strikes.

It is a fraught situation, but, nevertheless, the Labour Party looks shambolic, childish and petulant.

Just to throw yet another spanner in the works, Corbynista and the world’s newest campaigner for mental health awareness, Ken Livingstone, was on Question Time, where he said that Tony Blair’s decision to invade Iraq killed 52 Londoners in the 7/7 bombings, and he repeated the bombers’ justification that they only murdered because of Iraq.

Whether or not he has got a point doesn’t matter much because, so far as it goes now, we are at the highest level of risk anyway and have prevented 7 terrorist attacks this year. Iraq did make us a greater target for terrorist attacks, but the bullseye that conflict brought on us has never gone away.

Still, why shouldn’t Ken bring up the past? After all, it’s where he lives.

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NByNW Diary: Don't Be Rude to Ken Livingstone - He'll Insult Entire Sections of Society

Wednesday 18^th November

Today, Labour’s National Executive Committee has decided to appoint former Mayor of London and newt-fancier (no, really – he is) Ken Livingstone to be the joint head of the party’s policy review on Defence, alongside the Shadow Defence Secretary Maria Eagle.

This seems like a definite attempt to ensure that the anti-Trident camp are given as big a voice as possible, and as such it caused a bit of stir.

Kevan Jones MP, who served as a Defence Minister in the Labour government, told PoliticsHome: “I’m not sure Ken knows anything about Defence. It will only damage our credibility amongst those that do and who care about defence.”

To which Livingstone responded: “I think he might need some psychiatric help. He’s obviously very depressed and disturbed. He should pop off and see his GP before he makes these offensive comments.”

Which was inappropriate both generally and specifically. Generally because there is a widespread effort – not least from Jeremy Corbyn – to change attitudes towards mental health, and specifically because Kevan Jones actually has been very depressed, and opened up about this in 2012.

A lot of people were naturally upset, and Mr Jones expressed his offense at the comments.

To which, Mr Livingstone refused to apologise, saying that he grew up in South London where “If someone’s rude to you, you are rude back.” Always a good idea to try and defuse a situation by citing the moral system of a teenager but, given that he grew up in the 50s, I suppose we can just be thankful that he didn’t grow up in the Bronx, where if someone was rude to you, you'd pop a cap in their ass.

With further outcry, Ken finally gave into the pressure:

1/2 I unreservedly apologise to Kevan Jones for my comments. They should not have been made at all, let alone in this context.

— Ken Livingstone (@ken4london) November 18, 2015

2/2 I also make this apology because Jeremy is right to insist on a more civil politics and as a party we should take this seriously

— Ken Livingstone (@ken4london) November 18, 2015

Given that he refused to apologise at 12.30pm, and then volte-faced at 2pm, we can assume that Jeremy did a lot of insisting over a post-PMQs lunch by peering over his glasses and waiting for Ken to stop behaving like an unthinking adolescent.