CORBYN THE COPYCAT
Speech recycled from Eighties handout – and he didn’t even mention migrants or poll defeat
JeReMY Corbyn faced ridicule last night after it emerged large chunks of his first conference speech had been written in the 1980s and rejected by every Labour leader since Michael Foot.
In a rambling address to the faithful in Brighton, the Labour leader dismayed moderate MPs by failing to mention immigration, the deficit or the party’s crushing election defeat.
The self-styled champion of a ‘new politics’ was cheered as he invoked the language of class war to rail against those in society who have ‘property, class and capital’.
But it quickly emerged that big chunks of his speech had been lifted from notes submitted to a succession of Labour leaders by a leftwing blogger.
The revelation threatened to overshadow Mr Corbyn’s first big speech, in which he:
Put himself on collision course with his own MPs by claiming a mandate to lead Labour in opposition to Trident;
Vowed to return all schools to local authority control;
Confirmed plans to nationalise the railways;
Accused the Tories of gerrymandering and vowed to fight to stop students falling off the electoral roll;
Repeatedly attacked the media for ‘ sneering’ at his election prospects;
Pleaded with his supporters to stop their hate-filled rants on social media and embrace the new ‘kinder politics’;
Made an unfunded pledge to offer maternity pay to the self-employed;
Promised to build hundreds of thousands of council houses.
In a powerful closing passage, Mr Corbyn railed against globalisation and the better off, telling the dispossessed: ‘You don’t have to take what you’re given. Some people have property and power, class and capital, status and clout, which are denied to the many.
‘And time and time again, the people who receive a great deal tell the many to be grateful to be given anything at all. They say the world cannot be changed, and the many must accept the terms on which they are allowed to live in it.
‘Our Labour Party came into being to fight that attitude.’
But last night it emerged that the entire section had been lifted word for word from notes written by blogger Richard Heller, once an adviser to Denis Healey.
Aides to the Labour leader initially claimed his use of the phrases was a coincidence. But one source acknowledged Mr Corbyn and his speechwriter ‘may have looked at the internet to look up some facts’.
Mr Heller last night confirmed that the passage had been submitted to a string of Labour leaders, including Mr Corbyn. It was last rejected by ed Miliband in 2011. Mr Heller said: ‘I have always been proud of that passage, both for its content and its cadences, so much so that I have offered it regularly to every Labour leader from Neil Kinnock onward.’
Tory MP Andrew Percy last night said Mr Corbyn’s plundering of a 30-year-old speech was further evidence that he wanted to drag Britain back to the 1980s.
‘When you deliver a speech that even Neil Kinnock rejected then you know you are on the wrong side of history and the electorate,’ he said.
‘Mr Corbyn seems determined to recreate a them and us narrative which the country moved on from years ago.’ Although the speech was well received by activists in the conference hall, some Labour moderates reacted with dismay.
Rochdale’s Simon Danczuk said: ‘Come back ed Miliband, all is forgiven. Labour can’t win with a mantra of misery – that’s what Jeremy was doing in this speech. It was an election loser.
‘The new politics smells a lot like the old politics.’
One former minister said it was depressingly predictable that Mr Corbyn failed to mention the deficit in his debut speech.
He added: ‘You would think we’d have learned our lesson on this, but I don’t suppose there’s much chance of that now.’
Mr Miliband’s omission last year was seen as a major factor in Labour’s failure to establish economic credibility ahead of the election.
But aides to Mr Corbyn said there was no need to discuss the public finances because Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell had talked about the issue earlier in the week.
Labour’s new leader has previously said Britain should celebrate net migration reaching a record high.
But he skirted the issue yester- day, choosing to discuss only the plight of Syrian civil war refugees, whom he said Britain should do more to help.
A source acknowledged there had been no mention of immigration, but added: ‘Jeremy has only been leader for two weeks. We don’t have policies on everything.’
Despite the omissions, Mr Corbyn found time for a lengthy attack on Saudi Arabia over its record on human rights.
He branded Chancellor George Osborne’s austerity programme as ‘the outdated and utterly failed approach of the past’, which he said had left Britain ill prepared to face another crisis.
Business leaders last night gave the speech a muted response.
Simon Walker of the Institute of Directors said there was ‘not much space for business’ in the address and firms would have liked to have heard details of Labour’s plans to tackle the deficit.
Mark Littlewood of the Institute for economic Affairs accused Mr Corbyn of adopting a ‘wrongheaded and regressive economic agenda’.
The Labour Party came into being to fight that attitude. That is still what the Labour Party is all about. Labour is the voice that says to the multitude, at home and abroad: you don’t have to take what you’re given.
1980s handout
Our Labour Party came into being to fight that attitude. That is still what our Labour Party is all about. Labour is the voice that says to the many, at home and abroad: you don’t have to take what you’re given.
Corbyn yesterday