Labour Leadership

In Defence Of Tristram Hunt, In Praise Of The One Percent

Samuel Hooper1 Comment

Oxbridge - Tristram Hunt - 1 percent

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In qualified defence of Tristram Hunt

Was Labour MP Tristram Hunt wrong to call for the top one per cent to assert their leadership in the Labour Party?

Lots of people seem to think so, at least judging by the online hysteria now picking up steam following Hunt’s address to the Cambridge University Labour Club last week.

From the Independent:

Labour-supporting students at one of Britain’s two elite universities have been told by a Blairite MP to lead a campaign of “dissent” in the wake of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership victory.

Tristram Hunt, the former shadow education secretary, told students at Cambridge University Labour Club that they were the “top one per cent” and needed to show leadership within the party.  

“The way you serve the Corbyn leadership is to be as dissenting and creative as possible,” he told the students, according to the Cambridge University newspaper Varsity.

“You are the top one per cent. The Labour Party is in the shit. It is your job and your responsibility to take leadership going forward.”

But the truth is a little more complex than an outraged headline in the Independent or an angry Facebook post. And ultimately, it depends on what 1 per cent Tristram Hunt was talking about.

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We Need More Political Organisations Like Momentum

Samuel Hooper5 Comments

Momentum - Jeremy Corbyn - Labour Party - Facebook Page

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We should welcome the creation of campaign groups like Momentum, not fear their potentially disruptive effect

When the last meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party descended into an acrimonious shouting match audible to journalists listening outside, it was partly due to widespread suspicion of Momentum, the rebranded “Corbyn for Leader” campaign group which intends to continue agitating within Labour for left-wing policies as a kind of anti-Progress organisation.

Yes, there were other reasons why restive Labour MPs vented their frustrations at the PLP meeting, not least the fact that their Shadow Chancellor seems to have the political intelligence of a ten year old. But the incompetence and hard left-wingery could all be forgiven if only the bulk of centrist MPs were not terrified that Momentum might serve as a vehicle for Jeremy Corbyn to conduct a purge of the moderates, sweeping them aside in order to make room for more of his ideological soulmates.

The Telegraph’s Kate McCann reported at the time:

Senior Labour MPs have warned a new campaign group, set up by supporters of Jeremy Corbyn, is a “threat to sitting MPs” and will “undermine” the party.

Momentum, a collective set up with the backing of the Labour leader and the Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell, aims to influence party policy but MPs are worried it is the beginning of a purge of moderate members who don’t support the leader.

One Shadow Cabinet Minister said: “They are setting up a party within a party and I fear that they will use it to take control of conference, policy-making and mount a purge.”

Much of the reporting of Momentum has thus been framed in terms of the threat the organisation might pose to centrist Labour MPs and other enemies of Jeremy Corbyn, which is interesting enough, but overlooks the more important question of whether new political campaign groups like Momentum are a good or bad thing for our democracy in the first place.

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Stop Criticising Jeremy Corbyn’s Speeches And Focus On His Ideas

Samuel HooperLeave a comment

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Jeremy Corbyn detractors have been criticising the Labour leader’s early speeches for not being conciliatory enough, and for rambling. They would do better to focus on his ideas

Remember that great speech Ed Miliband once gave?

The really inspiring one, that time where he not only lifted the spirits of committed Labour Party activists but also reached out to the whole country, convincing millions of British people that a bright and appealing future lay just around the corner, ours for the taking under a Labour government?

You know, that barnstormer of a speech, one of those rare moments when human rhetoric rises to meet a momentous occasion; when hard-nosed political journalists were momentarily awed, and even cynical television pundits choked up. Surely you must remember?

No? Neither can I. Because it never happened. And yet corners of the British press are currently in the process of excoriating Jeremy Corbyn for failing to wow them with a good enough speech, having won the Labour leadership contest only days ago.

Corbyn’s victory speech was high-handed, amateurish, rambling, unstructured and not conciliatory enough, according to the verdict of various pundits. Matthew D’Ancona was particularly unimpressed with the strategic aspect:

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Can Jeremy Corbyn Redeem Himself On Tackling Extremism?

Samuel Hooper2 Comments

Jeremy Corbyn - Foreign Policy - Appeasement

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Can Jeremy Corbyn rehabilitate his two-dimensional, anti-British foreign policy worldview?

Jeremy Corbyn’s red-blooded socialist domestic policies are generally flawed and counterproductive, but we can forgive him for that because he represents a legitimate strand of political thought that for too long has been marginalised and shut out of the political conversation in favour of the quisling, centre-left socialism of the likes of Ed Miliband.

What is much harder to forgive, however, are some of Jeremy Corbyn’s stances on foreign policy, where he has frequently espoused views and shared platforms with people of highly questionable character and motive. Whether it’s concerning Northern Ireland, Israel/Palestine or the Iraq war, too often Jeremy Corbyn’s public positions have drifted across the line separating conscientious objection from something much worse.

But now that Jeremy Corbyn is the leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition and burdened with one of the formal offices of state, what chance is there that reason, patriotism and propriety might assert themselves to moderate his well-known public stances?

Jonathan Russell, political liaison officer at the Quilliam anti-extremism think-tank, remarkably sees cause for hope:

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Jubilant Trade Unions Are Wildly Misreading Jeremy Corbyn’s Mandate

Samuel HooperLeave a comment

TUC Conference - Young Socialists - General Strike

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Trade union activists may be delighted by Jeremy Corbyn’s triumph in the Labour leadership contest, but they should not mistake the scale of his victory for widespread demand for socialist and pro-union policies among the wider British public

Can you imagine a British general strike taking place in the year 2016, ninety years since the last, with workers from every industry downing tools (or leaving their public sector office desks, as it would be today) to bring the entire country grinding to a halt?

No, of course you can’t – no person with a single foothold in reality can take the prospect seriously, let alone countenance the circumstances whereby a general strike might now be justified. But Britain’s trade union leaders can – and now that Jeremy Corbyn has been installed as Labour leader, they fully intend to make it a reality.

The Daily Mail strikes a suitably alarmist tone:

It would be the first time that there had been a General Strike since 1926, when work was halted for nine days.

Unite, led by ‘Red Len’ McCluskey and one of Mr Corbyn’s biggest supporters, is calling for ‘a broad, militant and imaginative campaign’ against the Trade Union Reform Bill.

It even proposes breaking the law, saying the TUC should be open ‘to giving maximum possible political, financial and industrial support to those unions that find themselves outside the law’.

But on this occasion they are right to be alarmed. The Telegraph reports that Britain’s favourite union leader, Mark Serwotka, sees Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour leadership victory as only the start:

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