Saturday, December 21, 2019
The Labour delusion
I am just catching up with this article in the Guardian, in which Labour leadership candidate, Emily Thornberry states that senior advisers should pay the price for the party’s disastrous election showing, rather than the junior workers who are losing their jobs.
The context is a decision which has generated anger among Labour employees that two senior figures, Seumas Milne and Karie Murphy, are still in their posts, while at the same time more subordinate staff are being laid-off.
The row over job losses also blew up in the shadow cabinet, as some senior figures raised concerns that they had not even been told in advance that some of their long-serving advisers were being offered redundancy packages by the central party.
Thornberry seems particularly aggrieved as she appears to blame Milne and Murphy for decisions that led to Labour losing so much support during the General Election. However, in common with other leadership contenders she does not address the real cause of Labour's defeat, at least publicly, namely the unpopularity of Jeremy Corbyn and the fence-sitting over Brexit.
Irrespective of the status of the advisors, decisions in a political party are taken by politicians, not by staff. If scapegoats are needed then MPs should be looking to their own leadership. That those seeking to succeed Corbyn are not doing so, is the ultimate delusion. Labour cannot move on until they get this right.
The context is a decision which has generated anger among Labour employees that two senior figures, Seumas Milne and Karie Murphy, are still in their posts, while at the same time more subordinate staff are being laid-off.
The row over job losses also blew up in the shadow cabinet, as some senior figures raised concerns that they had not even been told in advance that some of their long-serving advisers were being offered redundancy packages by the central party.
Thornberry seems particularly aggrieved as she appears to blame Milne and Murphy for decisions that led to Labour losing so much support during the General Election. However, in common with other leadership contenders she does not address the real cause of Labour's defeat, at least publicly, namely the unpopularity of Jeremy Corbyn and the fence-sitting over Brexit.
Irrespective of the status of the advisors, decisions in a political party are taken by politicians, not by staff. If scapegoats are needed then MPs should be looking to their own leadership. That those seeking to succeed Corbyn are not doing so, is the ultimate delusion. Labour cannot move on until they get this right.
