Gray days for Keir Starmer after a beer-and-football premier sided with Morgan McSweeney’s boys’ brigade against Sue’s girls’ gang. The No 10 chief-of-staff switcheroo was scored by dispirited MPs caught in the crossfire as a resounding victory for the leakers over the leaked-against. Gray’s gang moan she was handed a huge can in blame for Starmer’s freebies. McSweeney’s brigade boast he’ll impose the election campaign’s discipline on Downing Street. The feared operator some privately call Mack the Knife is also a target.
Rosie Duffield was a one-woman stomp, yet a left-wing snout revealed revolution is brewing among seven Labour MPs who lost the whip by voting for a King’s Speech SNP amendment that axes the two-child benefit cap. Three of the temporarily suspended – Zarah Sultana, John McDonnell and Apsana Begum – are said to be ready to accept or declare permanent exclusion. July’s election of four independent Muslims and Jeremy Corbyn is focusing the minds of rebels. Sitting as MPs for an independent Labour party would be back to a bolder, brasher, more socialist future.
Bone-cruncher Al Carns MC, a former Royal Marine colonel recruited to serve as the Starmtroopers’ veterans’ minister, is considered parliament’s most painful handshaker. One victim whinged he couldn’t hold a pen properly for a week. The Tory with the tightest grip? Robert Jenrick’s wife, hard-nosed American corporate lawyer Michal Berkner. Generic’s colleagues guffaw she wears the knuckle-dusters in their house.
Government chief whip Alan Campbell’s enforcers have ordered the party’s MPs to cheer Keir Starmer louder at PMQs, whispered a newbie. The fresh meat were told Wednesday high-noon bouts are a contact sport. Tory whips rewarded with bottles of wine screamers on their benches reprimanded by Lindsay Hoyle. Perhaps Labour’s rabble-rousers could incentivise theirs with free suits and spectacles.
Malleable newbies, by the way, were instructed by Labour whips to apply for written permission to go home early. Discipline is breaking down since a minister gleefully advised novices this wasn’t the system under previous regimes. The old school teaching the new school the rules is stoking resentment.
Insert your own football joke here. I have. Arsenal season-ticket-holder comrade Corbyn confided to friends that he doesn’t really like football, going to the Emirates mainly because the club is an Islington North religion. Jezza’s lucky. He could be MP for Milton Keynes Central and face a 300-mile round trip every other weekend to watch Manchester United at Old Trafford.
[See also: Keir Starmer is losing his cool]
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This article appears in the 09 Oct 2024 issue of the New Statesman, 100 days that shook Labour