Labour's Disreputable Leadership

Jeremy Corbyn decided he didn't want to kneel before Her Majesty and swear the oath of allegiance as part of his induction as a Privy Councillor but rather than be honest about it, he got his "office" to give 'a diary conflict' as the reason he would not attend. Diary conflict? I should explain that he would have had plenty of notice of impeding induction and could easily have shifted his other appointments around to suit: indeed he had agreed to the timing of this meeting with Palace officials. Far worse is the fact that his 'diary conflict' was nothing more than a day off - he was relaxing. According to the Sunday Times, Corbyn was eating a plateful of fish and chips at the Ben Nevis bar and restaurant in Fort William at the time he should have been at the Palace. Not even his mentor and fellow republican, Tony Benn, was ever that rude.

Some say Corbyn is a "man of great stature". I am not one of them.



But my real ire is reserved for someone who last week proved himself to be the lowest of the low, a true guttersnipe - Corbyn's deputy, Tom Watson. He was the front man for left-wing activists who concocted stories of paedophilia and child abuse by senior Conservative politicians and 'big wigs' including former Prime Minister, Edward Heath, Lord Bramall, Harvey Proctor (a former MP) and Lord Brittan, the former Conservative Home Secretary in Thatcher's government. His campaign against Brittan, in particular, was despicable in that he coerced the Crown Prosecution Service into forcing the Metropolitan Police to re-open the investigation against the peer when both bodies had concluded that there was absolutely no case against him. Watson repeated his allegations as others were making statements of condolence to Lady Brittan and her family on the passing of her husband. Needless to say Scotland Yard's new investigation yielded the same result: no case to answer and to its shame, nobody thought to inform the Brittans even though the investigation was concluded some months before his death. A Deputy Assistant Commissioner issued a statement of regret to Brittan's lawyers last week and Watson followed suit with his non-apology.

Tom Watson is quick to name names of Tory and Liberal politicians whom he alleges are guilty of crimes against children but is conspicuous by his silence when allegations involve Labour politicians - and, irony of ironies, members of his own family! Watson refused to sign an all-party petition calling for action against Labour peer Greville Janner in April of this year. And he failed to speak out against or even mention that his own uncle, Peter Halliwell, abused children whilst he was a scout leader in Cheadle Hulme between 1965 and 1967 for which he was jailed last year and placed on the Sex Offenders' Register.

No doubt some will opine that Tom Watson is a 'man of great stature'. No he is not, he is a fat, two-faced slug.



The remarks by Corbyn's Shadow Chancellor that spitting at people - or in their tea - is perfectly acceptable as a form of direct action are really quite tame by comparison. As is the proposed ousting of Sadiq Khan as Labour's candidate for London Mayor and replaced by a Corbynista. But nevertheless, taken together, are indicative of just how disreputable the present Labour leadership truly is.

He looks like his last job was sitting on a shop doorstep with a blanket, a tin cup and a bull terrier.

Yes - Corbyn does have all the sartorial elegance one would associate with someone who lives in a shop doorway.

Glad to see your totally fascinated with Mr Corbyn Mark

Don't you mean "Comrade Corbyn", Keith?

I and just about every other Tory can not believe our luck - another ten years in government at the very least! Your Sexpot Trot obviously fell asleep during Thatcher's premiership and missed experiencing Kinnock's purges of left-wing extremists and Blair's reshaping of the Labour party turning it into an election winning machine. At a stroke he's undone all that and returned Labour to the dark days of the 1980s - actually it's worse than that because it did attempt to be the Opposition in those days. Corbyn's Labour is not a party of worthy opposition and certainly not of government. It's a protest movement, pure and simple.

And this bothers you because ?

Many years ago, Private Eye responded to a Letter Before Action in a libel matter as follows...

Will Private Eye (or Markham) refer to Arkell v. Pressdram if they receive any communication from Corbyn's lawyers?

I will declare an interest; I am a friend of the Deputy Editor of Private Eye, who fwiw is on Tom Watson's Facebook friends list.

When I suggested that he might be guilty by association, he replied "I am not a Corbynista, still less a Watsonista!"

Having got that off my chest, I think Tom Watson's hounding of the dying Leon Brittan, whom he knew to be innocent, to the point that Brittan was buried in an unmarked grave for fear that his grave would be defiled, is the vilest act of any British politician for a very long time.

The man is filth.

We live in a Parliamentary Democracy, not a dictatorship nor in the banana republic that Britain would become if Corbyn were to win a General Election. For democracy to work there needs to be checks and balances in the legislative process provided by an effective and united opposition party led someone who commands respect from all corners of his party and beyond. This we do not have and indeed this essential element has been missing in British politics since 2010 - in the last Parliament, the Tories' coalition partners were a far more effective opposition than the 'official Opposition'!

Now we have the unique situation where a Labour leader commands the support of just 10% of his party's MPs. This will lead to all sorts of infighting and guerilla tactics being employed against him - such as the shadow cabinet's proposed collective decision to support Trident which Corbyn will either have to vote in favour of or face ridicule for voting against his own party's policy! Corbyn is not a true politician, simply a rabid anarchic protester who has voted against his own party more times than Cameron! I see that he has, yet again, canvassed those on Labour's emailing list for questions to put to Cameron at PMQs on Wednesday; any credible leader would have at least six questions on pressing issues of national importance that he seeks answers to, but not Corbyn.

Miliband was 'Corbyn Lite' and under his leadership Labour suffered a humiliating defeat at the last election. What makes you think that the 'full fat' version will fare any better in 2020 or even 2025?



The left has not learned from its mistakes that led to its wilderness years and is destined to repeat them.

Cant begin to say how happy I am that the Labour Party Leader terrifies you so much , a promising sign

You may not know that the litigant in that case subsequently left Granada TV Rentals' employment which led to the following appearing in Private Eye: "Mr Arkell has now, albeit belatedly, complied with the suggestion made to him at an earlier stage of the proceedings."

Yesterday's Guardian published a piece by its columnist Nick Cohen entitled "Why a deserved downfall beckons for Tom Watson". Here are a few relevant extracts:

Hear, hear.

Your delusional response underlines your failure to address the issues!

So, Labour's disreputable leadership consists of a geriatric Wolfie Smith wannabe, a fraudster and a bullying liar. Doesn't exactly inspire confidence, does it!

That's an accurate summary.

Corbyn is a lightweight; his Shadow Chancellor was actually fired by Ken Livingstone for putting forward bogus figures and his Deputy Leader is a walking stinking ball of slime.

Whoever designed that piece of propaganda needs remedial English language lessons. Specifically comprehension.

The answer to the question is not what you think it is!

All three 'despicables' made the news yesterday - and none of it reflects well on them.

Last week David Cameron suggested that the self-appointed Nonce-Finder General (Tom Watson) should examine his conscience regarding his hounding of Leon Brittan. "It’s clear I think that he’s got a lot of questions to answer and the House of Commons Select Committees are quite rightly going to ask him some questions so I'm sure he should answer those questions and examine his conscience about whether he’s said enough so far … " the Prime Minister said. Yesterday afternoon, Watson stood on his hind legs at the Dispatch Box and refused to say sorry: "Earlier the Prime Minister said that I should examine my conscience. Well, I think we all need to examine our consciences in this House. We presided over a state of affairs where children have been abused, and then ignored, dismissed and then distained. If anyone deserves an apology, it’s them." He made no further statement, much to his (further) discredit. One can only hope that this porkie-pie purveyor is well-grilled by the Inquisition of the Select Committees.

His leader has been stripped of his "Right Honorable" title - which is accorded automatically to members of the Privy Council. Corbyn who went hiking in Scotland rather than meet the Queen last Thursday had been made a member of the advisory body by means of an Order in Council which is normally only ever used in the case of a foreign (Commonwealth) candidate. However yesterday morning word got out that the Privy Council had cancelled Corbyn's membership because he had snubbed the Queen and not sworn the oaths of allegiance and to keep confidential any secrets revealed to him. The status quo will continue unless and until Corbyn takes part in the ceremonial. Until then he remains the only leader ever of Her Majesty's Opposition not to be a Privy Councillor.

There was apparently a very stormy meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party last evening at which John McDonnel announced a major policy U-turn. Two weeks ago the shadow chancellor surprised everyone by announcing that Labour would sign-up to and support the 'Fiscal Charter' - by which the nation's books would be balanced and the budget be run at a surplus - put forward by the Conservatives. Yesterday he cancelled all that in favour of his anti-austerity programme of tax-spend-borrow and print money: "we need to cement ourselves as the anti-austerity party", he said. According to Guido Fawkes, this caused an uproar with former Labour Cabinet minister Ben Bradshaw describing the party’s economic policy as now "a total f****** shambles". Another (unnamed) former minister said "You are right to say we need a serious message on the economy but this is an embarrassing shambles". A long-serving MP described the meeting as "the worst PLP meeting I have ever attended, including the dark days of Iraq when the party was deeply split." Labour MP John Mann predicts Labour will be "torn apart by the Tories and SNP on Wednesday" for the U-turn, which he said undermined Corbyn’s promise of a new and honest politics - well we all knew that was a lie!

Labour is now in the hands of conspiracy theorists.