That BlackRock boss Larry Fink was one of the few Downing Street visitors to leave happy should concern Keir Starmer. Labour MPs report constituency surgeries, bazaars and meetings are like Dickens’s A Christmas Carol before Scrooge was terrified into a better life. Pensioners complaining over axed winter fuel allowance, parents about the two-child benefit cap, and now students in England at rising tuition fees give no festive cheer. John McDonnell was overheard likening mounting woes to alternative lyrics for an updated “Twelve Days of Christmas”. Presumably without the partridge in a pear tree. A farmer sold them to pay inheritance tax.
Wily McDonnell and six other comrades who lost the whip over the two-child benefit revolt could yet be addressed as independent Labour rather than mere independents. Speaker Lindsay Hoyle is formally consulting the Procedure Committee. Precedents exist. Clare Short (Ind Lab) and Ann Winterton (Ind Con) both received such descriptions. The Samurai Seven’s six-month suspensions are reviewed in January. Poplar socialist Apsana Begum receiving approval to advertise constituency posts as Labour Party jobs may signal the outcome. Extend limbo and an independent Labour party might sit in the Commons for the first time since 1950.
Toff-capped Nigel Farage is ploughing a Reform furrow to be the voice of insurgent farmers, taunting Tory MPs that applause for Kemi Badenoch at the London rally was as lukewarm as one-handed clapping by parishioners holding china cups at a vicar’s tea party. The Clacton cuckoo, barred from addressing the crowd, met protest organisers to discuss a joint campaign. I’m told he would like tractor-driving Jeremy Clarkson to stand as a Reform MP. Diddly Squat’s head is at the centre of a tug-of-war with the Tories, with shadow cabinet member Kevin Hollinrake similarly issuing overtures.
John Prescott’s death rekindled memories for Labour peer Tom Watson of Two Jabs’ extraordinary connection with the electorate. In 2001 then West Brom MP Watson was collared by a local who said he’d vote Labour because of Prezza’s punch. Watson asked: “Who would you have voted for without it?” “The BNP.”
“There’s almost enough New Labour people here to form a new government,” mused a former senior member of Tony Blair’s regime at the funeral of ex-spinner David Hill. The former PM recalled Hill once asking if he was doing anything that would interest lobby hacks. Blair replied he was poised to announce he’d fight only one more election, was buying a house and also going into hospital for a heart op. Hill, gently stroking his trademark Mexican moustache, responded: “Well, I think that answers my question.”
Kevin Maguire is the associate editor (politics) of the Daily Mirror
[See aslo: The truth about sick-note Britain]
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This article appears in the 27 Nov 2024 issue of the New Statesman, The Optimist’s Dilemma