Anti-nepotists back Corbyn (whose son is Labour adviser)
JEREMY CORBYN is facing accusations of hypocrisy after his supporters created a video accusing middle-class families of nepotism – despite the fact the Labour leader has a son who works for John Mcdonnell.
A Momentum campaign group video parodies a garden party with a series of characters criticising Mr Corbyn’s policies and questioning why he is “so popular”. One of the characters says that “people think they deserve a job, without doing the necessary work to get it” and that “nobody ever helped me out”.
A message then flashes on screen reading: “Got his job at a media agency through his father. Who started the agency with money from his father.”
But critics have been quick to point out that Mr Corbyn’s top team contains a number of people with family links to the Labour leader and his allies.
Seb Corbyn, one of the Labour leader’s sons, works for Mr Mcdonnell, the shadow chancellor, while former Labour deputy prime minister John Prescott’s son David works in Mr Corbyn’s office and Laura Murray, a shadow cabinet adviser, is the daughter of Labour campaign chief Andrew Murray.
Conservatives lined up to criticise the advert, with Will Quince MP for Colchester, describing it as “hateful”.
James Cleverly, Conservative MP for Braintree, said the video was a “masterclass in motivating people” by “using resentment of bourgeoisie caricatures”. “Lenin would be proud,” he said. Meanwhile, a new Labour MP was facing criticism last night after it emerged that she sent both her children to a grammar school while campaigning against the system during the General Election.
Rosie Duffield, the MP for Canterbury, revealed at a hustings during the election that her eldest son “absolutely loves” the grammar school that he attends.
She disclosed that her youngest son also attended the same grammar school but found it too competitive and has since moved on to another school.
Despite sending her children to a grammar school she said during the election campaign that building new grammar schools is a “Tory vanity project” and that it should not be “the way forward”.
Daniel Hamilton, who has been tipped as a future Conservative challenger in the city, has written an open letter to the new Labour MP highlighting her perceived hypocrisy.