How Corbyn man abused his own side

ANoTHEr bleak poll for Comrade Corbyn yesterday showed 67 per cent of voters regard the Labour Party as hopelessly split.

In two speeches at the weekend, Corbyn insisted they were moving on from the disagreements which saw four shadow ministers resign in ten days. In the first shadow cabinet meeting of the year, shadow chancellor John McDonnell, Corbyn’s right-hand man, said they had to ‘draw a line’ under recent conflicts.

But it’s a difficult line to draw, not least because of the conduct of McDonnell. A new quote has come to light which shows why. Addressing the Prison officers Association conference in 2011, the then obscure backbencher McDonnell thanked chairman Colin Moses for his unstinting support.

‘He’s been a fundamental support for our trade union group in Parliament. Always there when we needed him, always there whenever we’ve gone on delegations, intimidating ministers of whatever political party, [he’s] been there.’ In other words, McDonnell intimidated Labour ministers, too.

At an occupy Democracy rally in october 2014, he attacked the last Labour government for making welfare cuts and said: ‘The fight for me as a Labour MP is within the Labour Party, to fight them . . . we’ve got to eyeball these b******s because they’re supposed to represent us, not c**p on us in the way that they are at the moment.’

McDonnell recently said the new leadership would discipline party members who abused MPs. The abuse he said he had suffered ‘had been appalling and shouldn’t be in politics’. Labour ministers he’s abused would agree with that.