Nandy takes swipe at Blair’s ‘Thatcherite’ government
LISA NANDY has become embroiled in a row with Tony Blair after she accused the former Labour prime minister of pursuing Thatcherite policies.
As the Wigan MP reached the final stage of the leadership contest yesterday, she was criticised by senior party moderates for claiming that New Labour had tried to be as “tight as the Tories” on welfare.
Speaking in central London, Ms Nandy said she would pursue a “progressive” taxation system which would raise capital gains and corporation tax rates to “match those on earnings”.
She also took aim at past Labour administrations for “tacitly” accepting that “economic conservatism was a bigger priority than people”, adding that it was only under Jeremy Corbyn that the party “broke with this consensus”.
Hitting back last night, the Tony Blair Institute said that “any assertion that the last Labour government was a continuation of the Thatcher era is bad politics and worse history”. In a statement posted online, it insisted that the period between 1997 and 2010 saw “huge improvements in Britain’s public services, with millions lifted out of poverty and radical changes made to the lives of many, for the better”.
Separately, one moderate Labour MP told The Daily Telegraph that leadership hopefuls Ms Nandy and Sir Keir Starmer were pulling out all the stops to avoid losing the support of pro-corbyn activists tempted by Rebecca Long-bailey.
“This nonsensical debate about the last Labour government tells you everything you need to know about the Labour Party,” they said.
“The truth is that Lisa and Keir are doing the dance of the seven veils and are trying to make sure they win the contest. So they are going to come out with all sorts of b------- in the next few weeks.”
The row came as Ms Nandy secured the backing of Chinese for Labour, an affiliated group, and was endorsed by Jess Phillips, who dropped out of the leadership race on Tuesday.
Her latest nomination means that Ms Nandy has passed the threshold
‘The truth is Lisa and Keir are doing the dance of the seven veils in a bid to make sure they win the contest’
required to join Sir Keir in the final ballot of members, with Ms Long-bailey expected to join them when Unite announces its endorsement tomorrow.
Meanwhile, in an attempt to knock Sir Keir’s leadership bid off track, a senior ally of Ms Long-bailey said he should “stand aside” to ensure that the Labour Party could elect its first female leader. Ian Lavery, the Labour Party chairman, said the shadow business secretary was “a woman who is as strong as anyone within the party”.
Dismissing Mr Lavery’s suggestion, Ms Nandy and Ms Phillips both insisted that the next leader should be the best candidate for the job.
By the time the Labour Party gets around to electing its new leader in early April, nearly four months will have elapsed since it endured the worst drubbing at the polls since 1983. Indeed, it has fewer seats in the Commons now than at any time since 1935.
While party members seek to whittle down the field of contenders, Jeremy Corbyn continues to present the public face of Labour to the country. His appearances at the Commons dispatch box are object lessons in denial: it is as though the election did not happen and his policies were not repudiated, especially by voters they had taken for granted for decades.
This unwillingness to see what everyone else can see has paralysed the leadership contest. Because Mr Corbyn retains an almost messiah-like status among the members, those seeking to replace him must pretend that he was not part of the reason they lost. Rebecca Long-bailey, when asked to mark his leadership, gave him 10 out of 10. Only Jess Phillips has been openly critical and she is out of the race.
Even the front-runner, Sir Keir Starmer, never considered to be on the hard Left, is having to bend the knee to the totems of socialism, presumably hoping he can wrench the party back to the centre were he to win.
Lisa Nandy, the Wigan MP, has achieved enough support to get on to the ballot but she, too, subscribes to the view that the election outcome can be attributed to media misrepresentation of what were perfectly sound policies. She says the candidates must be honest about the reasons for the defeat, yet the only people they are lying to are themselves. Everyone else knows why they lost.