The kamikaze style of Momentum narcissist Christine Shawcroft certainly isn’t found in the ABC of Chairmanship, Walter Citrine’s definitive guide to conducting labour movement meetings. Comrades fear the strain of chairing the party’s disputes panel is unsettling the veteran activist. Frustrated by her inability to persuade Labour’s National Executive Committee members to drop disciplinary charges in two constituency cases, three horrified sources recounted how, while still chairing the hearing, a seething Shawcroft pinged a couple of splenetic WhatsApp messages to a 25-strong left group. The first unwise denunciation – “you bunch of fucking wankers” – was followed swiftly by the perhaps unwiser “I want to kill you all”. Yelled in the room, the insult might have proved sufficient grounds to summon Shawcroft on an abuse charge before the very panel she convenes. How to lose friends and alienate comrades.
My radar-lugged snouts report Harriet Harman is quietly soliciting support for a potential tilt at the Speakership should John Bercow be forced to vacate the chair. The Westminster grande dame was overheard discussing the bullying row threatening Big John, a taxi driver’s son, in the members’ cloakroom with tall Tory Daniel Kawczynski. The Conservative MP loftily informed Harman, “We need a Speaker with a little dignity and class.” Who oozes more class than an earl’s niece or greater dignity than the woman who retained
her poise when Gordon Brown’s deputy?
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