Jeremy Corbyn’s wife is part of a group set up to unseat Sir Keir Starmer at the next general election that is also discussing standing independent candidates against Labour in coming by-elections.
Screenshots leaked to Sky News show an account belonging to Laura Alvarez is a member of the Organise Corbyn Inspired Socialist Alliance (OCISA) Facebook group.
Further images show Ms Alvarez’s account commenting in the group – including posting “disgusting creature” on a photo of Sir Keir.
EXTRA: This Site has been contacted by a person wishing to clarify OCISA’s side of the story.
They say: “Laura isn’t a figurehead for OCISA. She didn’t say Starmer is disgusting.
“OCISA will not be standing candidates around the country – only in Holborn and St Pancras, although members are being encouraged to support Socialist candidates in their areas.”
They added: “Membership has shot up, so Sky did us a favour!”
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Suella Braverman in Rwanda: she can send people there, but if that country’s government invokes the part of the deal in which it sends people to the UK, it seems she’ll renege on it.
It’s good to know that Suella Braverman will lie in the face of the facts during a TV interview when she is confronted with them.
BBC reporters have examined the deal by which the UK gets to send refugees to Rwanda, and it is reciprocal; Rwanda will be able to send people to this country in return.
But when Braverman – who is the UK’s Home Secretary, remember – was confronted with this, she flatly denied that it would happen:
The Tories don't want anyone to know this, so please retweet.#bbclaurak The Rwandan deal says the UK will resettle some of their refugees… how many will come to the UK?
Notice that she didn’t say it wasn’t a part of the deal.
It seems likely, therefore, that the UK will renege on the deal, should Rwanda try to invoke that part of it.
What then? An international incident?
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Child poverty: this figure is from 2016 so it’s probably a lot worse now. But the official figures are based on average incomes – which have fallen – so the number of kids who are actually struggling to survive may be enormous.
Isn’t it incredible that the Levelling-Up minister, Michael Gove, can’t admit what his Tory governments have done over the last 13 years.
They have caused the worst fall in living standards since records began, pitched 14 million people into poverty – including four million children, forced millions into dependency on food banks, and they haven’t got a scrap of shame about it.
And the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg didn’t even have the guts to counter him about it.
Here’s Peter Stefanovic with what she should have said:
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Corruption? Richard Sharp (left) and Boris Johnson.
A Parliamentary committee has reached a damning conclusion about BBC Chairman Richard Sharp, who helped facilitate a very large loan to Boris Johnson while he was applying to Johnson for his current job.
The Commons’ Digital, Culture, Media and Sport committee said Mr Sharp committed serious errors of judgement in his conduct. It clearly seems to have created a serious conflict of interest, if not outright corruption – arranging financial help for the person to whom he was applying for a job.
On the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, the Minister for Development and Africa, Andrew Mitchell, said Mr Sharp’s future as chairman was a matter for the BBC.
This is not true.
His was a government appointment – he was given the job by then-prime minister Boris Johnson (that’s why there was a conflict of interest) and only the government can remove him from office (although he may still resign of his own accord).
Watch Mitchell dump himself in the mire and try to talk himself out of it – and then enjoy the reactions of panellists on the show, including John Nicholson, the SNP MP who grilled Mr Sharp hotly at the DCMS committee session.
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James Cleverly: He was once described as “the Tories’ go-to eejit when they need someone to tweet absolute nonsense or defend the indefensible”.
Foreign Secretary James Cleverly did the Sunday morning interview round on January 23, 2023 – meaning he had to field questions about whether Boris Johnson corruptly appointed Richard Sharp as BBC Chairman, and about Nadhim Zahawi’s taxes.
He didn’t have answers about either of them, and instead came across as shifty, unrevealing and untrustworthy.
His responses displayed many characteristics of what police (for example) might describe as untruthfulness, or at least deception.
In this video clip, I have tried to identify at least a few of the tell-tale signs:
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Laura Pidcock (right) with Jeremy Corbyn: there’s more genuine for-the-people politics in this image than in the whole of Keir Starmer’s shadow cabinet.
Keir Starmer will be happy to see her go – but that is a mistake.
Laura Pidcock, one of the leading lights of Labour’s left wing, has quit the party’s ruling National Executive Committee, citing “irreconcilable differences” between the behaviour of the party’s current leadership and the traditional Labour principles on which she was brought up.
In a statement, she said Keir Starmer’s leadership had made Labour “hostile territory for socialists, from those of us on the NEC, to those in CLPs across the country”.
“What I have witnessed on the NEC has been immensely frustrating,” she wrote.
“This leadership is devoid of ideas, lacking vision. I can’t and won’t negotiate with these people any more. The summit of their ideas are just small tweaks to the status quo.
“They challenge virtually nothing, but are noticeably determined when it comes to rule changes that alienate the left. They have demoralised thousands of people who were awakened to politics for the first time in their life. I am sure this is part of their larger strategy.
“When there is so much devastation caused by this Government and the economic system we live under, when poverty is endemic, when people are hungry, when finance capital is tightening its grip on the NHS, with a Government entrenching the hostile environment, and when the ravages of climate decay are obvious for all to see, we cannot go on giving our energy to people who want to block fundamental, positive change.”
She stated that her unease with the Labour leadership was “crystallised” by the cheering of Tory right-winger Christian Wakeford (“an MP who has voted against everything we believe in”) as he crossed the floor of the House of Commons to join Starmer.
“What I immediately felt was pain for all of those who are forced to use food banks, all of those who are going through the punitive ‘social security’ system, for all of the amazing activists protesting against the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, including Gypsy and Traveller people, who are also at the heart of resisting the racism in this legislation — some of the many reasons why this whooping by elected representatives of my own party, on that day, was so inappropriate and jarring for so many,” she wrote.
And she said attempts to restore the Labour whip to Jeremy Corbyn were futile under Starmer’s leadership: “Perhaps with the best of intentions, some people seem to think that we can negotiate our way to justice by appealing to the right of the party to do the right thing. That has never worked and certainly will not work in the current circumstances.”
A Labour spokesperson said: “We thank Laura for her service and respect her decision.”
It will be interesting to see how Ms Pidcock is replaced; under current Labour Party rules, her position would be taken by the runner-up for her seat at the last NEC election – Ann Henderson.
But she is also a left-winger like Ms Pidcock. Should we expect Starmer to seek a loophole that will allow him to install one of his right-wing cronies instead? (I think we should.)
Ms Pidcock’s resignation has triggered a wave of support for her from other politicians, commentators and organisations. Here are some of the comments:
Solidarity to grassroots socialist champion @LauraPidcock for quitting the highest body in Labour’s internal machine.
She has worked hard to get justice for ordinary people in that body – but to no avail.
Members of the People’s Alliance of the Left #PAL stand in solidarity with @LauraPidcock who has shown courage and integrity in resigning from the Labour NEC today following the refusal to return the Labour whip to @JeremyCorbyn,former party leader and serving Labour MP for 40yrs
In Starmer’s Labour a welcome is given to disaffected hard right wing Tories; Blair gets a knighthood; Corbyn is denied the whip & Laura Pidcock feels she must resign from the NEC.
Their words are undoubtedly echoed in the thoughts of many thousands of people across the UK.
And therein lies Keir Starmer’s dilemma – because he relies on the votes of left-wingers and socialists across the UK to keep himself and his fellow right-wing squatters in Parliament, and in power within the Labour Party.
His belief is that the Left has no alternative other than to vote for his Tepid Tories; the First Past The Post voting system means that is the only way to get the Tories out.
But genuine left-wing organisations are springing up across the UK to challenge him; its representatives calling on those socialists remaining in Labour to desert Starmer’s hollowed-out zombie party and join a movement where their achievements will not be neutered by his suffocating presence.
The first test of his ability to resist the new wave of socialism will be the local elections in May – but it won’t be the last.
Is Ms Pidcock’s resignation the first pebble-fall leading to a landslide that will bury Starmer and his traitors forever?
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Lessons weren’t learnt: Dorries previously tweeted an offensive message using a derogatory reference to mental illness. You’d think she’d know better than to tweet unwisely again [Image: The Prole Star].
How revealing that the Culture Secretary should try to censor the BBC Political Editor’s reporting of a Conservative Party meeting – and then delete the tweet when she realises the message was sent in public.
I think this Tory twit has a bit of explaining to do.
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Laura Kuenssberg: by publicising an apparent mistranslation of a letter by the French Prime Minister, she has caused a major international political row. Can she even read French?
The BBC’s political editor, Laura Kuenssberg, misrepresented a letter on the UK/EU fishing row by French Prime Minister Jean Castex – apparently to stoke international tensions on the eve of the G20 and COP26 summits.
The UK and France are sabre-rattling over rights to fish in each other’s waters, after the UK prohibited some French trawlers over a technicality.
Kuenssberg aggravated the row by publicising a letter from Castex to European Commission President Ursula van der Leyen, claiming it said the EU needed to demonstrate that there was “more damage to leaving the EU than remaining there”.
This is based on a translation publicised by Alex Wickham of Politico. In tweets, he claimed the letter said:
“It is indispensable to demonstrate to European public opinion that more damage is suffered by leaving the EU than by remaining.”
The implication is that the EU should actively punish the UK.
“The UK’s uncooperative stance today threatens to cause great harm not only to fishermen, especially the French, but also to them [European] Union as it sets a precedent for the future and challenges our credibility and our ability to enforce our rights in relation to the international commitments signed by the union.
“It therefore seems necessary for the European Union to show its full determination to achieve full respect for the Agreement by the United Kingdom and to exercise its rights in a firm, cohesive and proportionate manner using the levers at its disposal.
“It is important to make it clear to European public opinion that respect for commitment is non-negotiable and that leaving the union does more harm than staying there.
“If a satisfactory solution is not found in this context, the European Union must apply Article 506 of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement and take corrective measures proportionate to the economic and social damage that [violations] will cause.”
That makes it a little different, once it’s put into context!
It should be immediately clear from the above text that there is no active intent to punish the UK. All the French want to do is to highlight the problems that Brexit has been causing — they are not trying to inflict new ones on us.
And people know:
Jean Castex's letter was totally misrepresented. It was written to VDL to reaffirm old rules: 1.signed agreements must be respected & 2.being outside of EU can't be as advantageous as being out. Simples. His words were mistranslated, taken out of context & changed into propaganda
— V. #IWearAMask #InLimbo #LesMaitresdelOrage (@InlimboV) October 31, 2021
(He means “…can’t be as advantageous as being IN” of course.)
Robert Peston said in his tweet that Boris Johnson has swallowed the Wickham translation and is “visibly angry” about the letter. But is he?
Which Johnson knows full well, and his 'visible anger' is disingenuous.
If Johnson is as well-educated as he’s supposed to be (Eton and Oxford) then it is entirely possible that he can read French for himself and knows exactly what the letter said. If so, then he is simply trying to manipulate a situation created by reporters (who probably can’t – with apologies to Kuenssberg and Peston if they turn out to be fluent, but that just implies that they know they’re peddling falsehoods and don’t care either).
This Writer, as a journalist and editor of nearly 28 years’ standing, agrees with Marcus Chown, below:
What has happened to “journalistic standards”, to fact checking, to honest reporting? Why isn’t the National Union of Journalists shouting about this from the roooftops and doing something about it? https://t.co/G1bf2ECMZo
Indeed. Or indeed any journalist-training organisation such as the one that taught me (the National Council for the Training of Journalists). Where did Peston and Kuenssberg get their qualifications?
Actually, let’s check.
Kuenssberg, it seems, has no qualification as a journalist. She studied History at the University of Edinburgh, then spent a year studying (but the subject is not clarified) at Georgetown University in Washington DC, where she interned at the NBC News political programme. Returning to the UK, she eventually joined the BBC as a trainee journalist – but that doesn’t mean she was doing any training. ‘Trainee’ is just the name applied to a working reporter who hasn’t passed the test to become a Senior Reporter. If she was trained in the States, it was in an American standard of reporting.
Peston’s degree at Oxford was Politics, Philosophy and Economics. He then studied at the Université libre de Bruxelles – but again, it’s not clear what the subject was. He entered journalism via another back door, writing for the Investors Chronicle after being a stockbroker.
Those details aren’t very reassuring!
But it shouldn’t be up to the Kuenssbergs, Pestons, or even the Johnsons of this world to sort out this row. It’s a matter for the French.
All Jean Castex has to do is come out and read the relevant part of his letter, along with a translation into English saying exactly what he intended it to say.
That should end any ambiguity. How about it?
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The BBC’s Politics Live had a little discussion of the incident in Pollokshields, Glasgow, when two men facing detention ordered by Priti Patel’s Home Office were released after residents turned up en masse to help them.
It seems Patel is planning to expand her detention facilities. Why’s that, then?
On Politics Live yesterday we were asked about the coming together of people in Pollokshields to stop the deportation of Sumit Sehdev and Lakhvir Singh. pic.twitter.com/T5unC3tlEx
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The shenanigans after yesterday’s (March 11) meeting of Labour’s National Executive Committee make This Writer glad not to be a member of that party any more.
The fact that Margaret Beckett is being allowed to continue as chair of the NEC after calling fellow committee member Laura Pidcock a “silly cow” on a Zoom meeting is unacceptable.
Pidcock had made a perfectly reasonable point after a motion to recall Labour’s party conference had been rejected with no vote taken, in a snub to party democracy.
The motion sought to recall the full party conference, possibly to coincide with Labour’s women’s conference in June, for reasons This Writer set out in a previous article:
The motion… reads: “Discussion in local Labour Party meetings has been suppressed; motions banned; scores of activists suspended; and anger and disillusionment is exploding across our lay membership across the party.
“Members are leaving in droves and many more are expressing frustration and dissatisfaction at the attack on democracy and free speech. Many members are saying it doesn’t feel like the Labour Party anymore.”
These are serious, party-splitting concerns, and it is unacceptable that Laura Pidcock, asking how members could have this out-of-hand rejection of those concerns explained to them, was dismissed as a “silly cow”.
The reaction on the social media was unequivocal:
I remember sitting in on an NEC meeting where expelling Simon Danczuk was discussed after he’d sent explicit messages to a minor. Margaret Beckett argued against it on the basis we “need a by-election like a hole in the head”. Can see from this she’s still stinking the place out https://t.co/lcZP6epU54
This is NOT how ANYONE should speak to a colleague, let alone the chair of Labour's sovereign body! 'Dame' Margaret Beckett should step down with immediate effect, such bullying, disgusting behaviour will never be tolerated. https://t.co/qI5HHrrBwP
— Damo #JoinAUnion #20More4All (@Cornish_Damo) March 11, 2021
Margaret Beckett should be removed before she has the opportunity to resign.
International Women's Week and @LauraPidcock, has just left a zoom of @UKLabour NEC meeting having being called a, "Silly Cow" in the open, by the NEC chair Margaret Beckett.
If this abuse had happened in my union they would be off @Keir_Starmer.
The last commenter is right: this is indeed Keir Starmer’s Labour.
And he has made it a cess pit.
I am delighted that I am not a member of an organisation that puts Starmer and Beckett in positions of seniority that they clearly do not merit. I have a feeling that many other Labour members will also abandon the party in the face of this ill-treatment.
And I expect the general public will do the same at the May elections.
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