This Once Great Movement Of Ours

[CumbrianLefty]

Of course, the rumours about Brown were of a rather different nature - and provided the excuse for that fearless seeker after truth P D Staines to indulge in some exceptionally unpleasant homophobia.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Bambos Charalambous has regained the whip.

[Torrain]

By my count, that brings Labour up to 201 - one short of their 2019 intake. Kinda wild, given all their by-election success in the past three years. Reminds you how much misbehaviour has been uncovered within the PLP in that time.

[TheTide]

Of course, the rumours about Brown were of a rather different nature - and provided the excuse for that fearless seeker after truth P D Staines to indulge in some exceptionally unpleasant homophobia.

It was seemingly a talking point on his 1996 appearance on Desert Island Discs:

Ms Lawley still refuses to drop the subject, persisting: "Do you understand people's curiosity? It is something that middle-aged men and women have to put up with. People want to know whether you're gay or whether there's some flaw in your personality that you haven't made a relationship . . ."

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/gordon-explains-why-there-s-no-mrs-brown-1339997.html

[CumbrianLefty]

By my count, that brings Labour up to 201 - one short of their 2019 intake. Kinda wild, given all their by-election success in the past three years. Reminds you how much misbehaviour has been uncovered within the PLP in that time.

Which means a win in Blackpool South brings them level (assuming no other changes)

[Wiswylfen]

If Keir festooned himself in the St George’s Cross some Telegraph columnist would probably accuse him of revealing a secret agenda to break up the union, at least I wouldn’t put it past them.

As it turns out, he will be the Telegraph columnist.

These days, the St George’s Cross certainly has more far-right connotations than the Union Jack (although this was not always the case; in the 80s, as well as its use by the National Front, hooligans would always fly the latter at England games). It’s really not a mystery why Labour isn’t using it; it also seems relevant here that ethnic minorities in England, for fairly obvious reasons, are likelier to identify as British rather than English.

How's it going?

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Of course, the rumours about Brown were of a rather different nature - and provided the excuse for that fearless seeker after truth P D Staines to indulge in some exceptionally unpleasant homophobia.

Didn't mandelson spread that rumour back in the day?

[CumbrianLefty]

Did he?

Of course Mandy has had quite a lot of homophobic innuendo from certain quarters as well.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Did he?

Of course Mandy has had quite a lot of homophobic innuendo from certain quarters as well.

Lord Levy, a Labour peer who served as the party’s chief fundraiser under Mr Blair, previously referenced the row in his own book, A Question of Honour.

Of an attempt to mend the relationship between Mr Brown and close Blair ally Peter Mandelson, he wrote: “Gordon was friendly, at least until I explained my mission.

“‘Make up with Peter?’ he hissed in an angry whisper. Then, his voice gradually rising first to dispatch-box volume and then to a near-shout, he exclaimed: ‘Peter? He’s been going around telling everyone that I’m gay! And I am NOT GAY!’

“Dozens of MPs looked around in astonishment, no doubt assuming that I had just tried – and thankfully failed – to proposition the chancellor of the exchequer!”

[Cassius]

For those interested, David Lammy has just dropped an essay on the next Labour government’s foreign policy, progressive clichéism.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-kingdom/case-progressive-realism-david-lammy?

[CumbrianLefty]

Par for the course, then.

[Blair]

Reports David Marquand has passed.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Reports David Marquand has passed.

Six months or so short of ninety. An interesting figure for all his faults and actually because of a few of them: he was a very open-minded man, and that comes with disadvantages as well as advantages, especially if one wishes to be a politician! Perhaps his biggest legacy will be writing his biography of MacDonald: it isn't an especially brilliant book, but the mere act of writing and having it published at all...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Many deaths it appears. Frank Field (latterly Baron Field of Birkenhead) has died. Member of Parliament for Birkenhead 1979-2019 (resigned the Labour whip in 2019 and stood as an Independent in 2019) and a crossbench peer from 2020 until his death. Previously the Director of the Child Poverty Action Group (1969-79). He was an independent-minded man (with often rather idiosyncratic views) who famously struggled in his one experience as a minister, but he was an effective campaigning backbencher both in opposition and in government: it is probably fair to say that he never really adjusted his method of doing politics from his time at the CPAG. He might well have been a useful member of the Lords (oddballs often are) but never had the chance to show it as a previously diagnosed cancer became terminal not long after he joined it and he swiftly became too ill to contribute. He was eighty one.

[CumbrianLefty]

An interesting guy, even if he became somewhat annoying and just a bit crankish in his later years as an MP. Was also one of Labour's youngest candidates at the 1966 GE (South Bucks)

His battles with a local party that was at least Militant influenced became a cause celebre for some in the 1980s, though things became calmer once he saw off a final deselection attempt in 1991.

[Conservatopia]

I bizarrely had an email chat with him a few years back. He had no idea I was a Tory but probably wouldn't have cared.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

An interesting guy, even if he became somewhat annoying and just a bit crankish in his later years as an MP. Was also one of Labour's youngest candidates at the 1966 GE (South Bucks)

He must have been one of the youngest councillors in the country in 1964.

His battles with a local party that was at least Militant influenced became a cause celebre for some in the 1980s, though things became calmer once he saw off a final deselection attempt in 1991.

The circumstances of his selection were interesting and it's a little frustrating that it's hard to find detailed accounts anywhere. I have a distant memory of reading that he'd had a phone call out of the blue telling him that the seat was worth going for (and an even fuzzier recollection that this was near some sort of deadline?) though I can't recall who from - was it CPAG people in Merseyside who spotted an opportunity? Anyway, Dell's supporters in the CLP were clearly very keen to have another intellectual as their MP and that was that.

[CumbrianLefty]

As noted by me elsewhere, his (otherwise fairly comprehensive) Wikipedia entry doesn't mention the internal goings on in the 1980s that almost resulted in his deselection at all.

A major, and frankly pretty incomprehensible, omission.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

As noted by me elsewhere, his (otherwise fairly comprehensive) Wikipedia entry doesn't mention the internal goings on in the 1980s that almost resulted in his deselection at all.

A major, and frankly pretty incomprehensible, omission.

Yes, it's frustrating (and, again, his obituaries are surprisingly light on all of this) especially as it clearly mattered a lot to him. His recently published memoirs - which are really loose discursive essays on particular themes: not a surprise as he won't have been well enough to do much more - show that clearly enough.

[CumbrianLefty]

Reported that Kate Osamor may soon be getting the whip back in parliament.

If the Blackpool South contest next week goes as most expect it to, that means that Labour might yet end this parliament with more MPs than it started with. That didn't seem likely for a while.

[Left Wing]

Credit where credit is due, I’d like to see more of this from Sir Keir and less consternation that anyone in an ostensibly left-wing party might have a problem with nationalism:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/apr/24/labour-promises-rail-nationalisation-within-five-years-of-coming-to-power

[JimJamUK]

Reported that Kate Osamor may soon be getting the whip back in parliament.

I genuinely can’t see why the leadership would do this? Left winger, dodgy comments on Israel, and among other things threatened violence against someone who asked why she lied about not knowing about her son’s drug dealing crimes.

[CumbrianLefty]

I expect that any return would require her to show a certain degree of contrition over previous I/P comments, in the same sort of way that Andy McDonald did.