Starmer ready to welcome back Blair spin doctor to party ranks

LABOUR LEADERSHIP frontrunner Sir Keir Starmer has suggested he would welcome Tony Blair’s former spin doctor Alastair Campbell back into the party.

Sir Keir said Mr Campbell, who was expelled last year after he admitted voting for the Liberal Democrats in the European elections, had made a “huge contribution” to Labour.

He contrasted a rapid response to Mr Campbell’s case to its approach to complaints of antiSemitism, amid persistent accusations it had been too slow to act.

“Look, I want anybody who wants to be in our party to be in the party.

“Alastair is a constituent of mine. And he was a long-standing Labour member, (he made) a huge contribution to the party,” he told the HuffPost website. “I think we need to get past this whole question of chucking people out and expulsions, etc.

“The cases we should concentrate on are cases, for example, of anti-Semitism or other racist behaviour within the party.

“And I use Alastair’s case as an example to say, if you can be chucked out of the party, almost straight away, for supporting another party at an election, surely you can be chucked out of our party in an absolutely clear case of anti-Semitism, and the mismatch was huge there.”

Meanwhile, deputy leadership candidate and Leeds East MP Richard Burgon said he wanted to set up a Tony Benn University of Political Education as he felt Labour had “failed miserably in relation to political education in the last few years”.

He told LabourList he wanted to create a “living monument” to his hero, Mr Benn.