The ever-delightful Taxpayers’ Alliance, speaking at the Conservative conference:
We’re not sure about that last line, chaps.
In the spirit of straight talking, honest politics, I’m going to put my cards on the table right now: I’m a Corbyn voter. As a classic hand-wringing, middle-class, North London leftie, the mad fact of Jeremy Corbyn’s candidacy compelled me to register as a Labour supporter; empowered me to bet £3 on the foolish notion that Something More might somehow, suddenly, be achievable.
In no small part, I was inspired to do this by what happened in Scotland this year. I’m sure many of us were: finally, a viable political force south of Berwick was willing to show two fingers to austerity.
And if anyone called us out, if they told us we were crazy and that nobody would vote for such a “loony”, “radical”, “hard-left” candidate? Well, then we had a perfect example just north of the border to throw back at them. The SNP had hoovered up 50% of the vote on an anti-austerity ticket, and after all, aren’t we one nation? One people fighting for a common cause, et cetera? Couldn’t we put labels aside and work together?
This is shadow Chancellor John McDonnell speaking to the Labour Party conference in Brighton just a few minutes ago (immediately prior to rather presumptuously inviting the Scottish electorate to “come home to Labour”):
We don’t recall those things happening. We feel sure that if they had, they would have been mentioned in the papers. Can any readers help us out?
Maybe check anything Kezia Dugdale tells you before you go on telly with it.
Let’s just quickly run through those facts, shall we?
Order “Welcome To Cairnstoon”, Chris’ compilation of Wings cartoons and more, here.
The editor of the New Statesman just tweeted this image, trailing an interview with Jim Murphy, who alert readers may recall led Scottish Labour for a few months this year before its apocalyptic disaster of a general election campaign which saw it lose 40 of the 41 Scottish seats it won in 2010:
Oh, wait – maybe he’s trying to claim the credit for it.
So we weren’t expecting this. The Telegraph have sent us a reply after we complained to IPSO about this. It’s worth a read, so we thought we’d let you see it.
There’s a remarkable story on the BBC News website today about the latest findings of the British Election Study, last seen destroying the myth that fear of the SNP damaged Labour in England. The piece focuses on the discovery that being seen as “too left-wing” does NOT, in fact, cost Labour votes, despite the hysterical warnings of supposedly leftist pundits.
But there’s a more startling fact buried right at the end.
Wings Over Scotland is a thing that exists.
