Labour expels member who is a Tory peer
ROS ALTMANN, the Conservative pensions minister, has been expelled from the Labour Party after it was discovered that she had been a member for more than 18 months.
The peer was reportedly amused to receive a text recently from Jeremy Corbyn asking if he could “count on your vote”.
Baroness Altmann, long a campaigner for pensions reform, was given a peerage by Mr Cameron after the general election so that she could become a minister. She was still a paid-up member of Labour at the time.
She was also a supporter of the party while advising the Coalition on pensions reform from outside government before the election.
A Labour source told the Huffington Post website that Lady Altmann “has been a fully-paid up member since March 2014 – until we expelled her today”.
Lady Altmann gave policy advice to Labour under Tony Blair, but was made Business Champion for Older Workers under the Coalition in July 2014. A spokesman for the peer said she “has taken an interest in all three parties” due to her previous roles as business champion and as director of over-50s group Saga.
“She is now only a member of the Conservatives,” the spokesman added.
The news emerged amid concerns about Tory infiltration of the Labour leadership contest and fears that some voters had not received their ballots and would fail to vote by tomorrow’s deadline.
A senior figure on one of the Labour leadership campaigns told the Mail Online the contest should be delayed. “There are genuinely lots of people who haven’t had their papers. It could decide the result,” the source reportedly said.
Sources on the campaigns of Andy Burnham, Yvette Cooper and Liz Kendall said they did not back a delay. A Labour Party spokesman said: “There are no plans to do this.”