I don’t usually do this kind of tweet, but since I’ve been asked: James Schneider is sound. It’s depressing to see posts about him—some of them from people I like—insinuating he’s in league with Starmer/Israel/the CIA (no joke, it has been suggested). So I'd just like to say...

https://twitter.com/RobZandsMP/status/1949730902428340479

Last summer he ran Jeremy’s campaign that trounced Labour in Islington North. He’s devoted huge energy to founding a party to displace Labour. He’s regularly on TV attacking Starmer. Does that sound like someone compromised, as some accuse him of being, by the job of his wife?

Israel has confirmed several airforce bases were hit by Iran while civilian damage was "only minor" & caused by shrapnel from interception missiles.

But Keir Starmer said: "The Iranian regime has launched over 200 ballistic missiles at civilian targets in Israel."

A grave lie. From Israeli newspaper Haaretz:
haaretz.com/israel-news/20…

Ruth Smeeth says she spent 5 years as an MP “begging” Labour to ensure “politicians” weren’t involved in its disciplinary process.

She did this by marching to a disciplinary hearing with 30 politicians, & by calling on Corbyn to “name and shame” abusive members with no process.





Ruth Smeeth says “the thing everyone needs to remember” about messages sent by Labour staff about Diane Abbott, which the Forde Report branded racist, is it was under Corbyn’s leadership.

Smeeth knows the messages were sent by her factional allies working against the leadership.

Labour says it's just ensuring the “highest standards of behaviour" from MPs in its treatment of Diane Abbott and others, not purging the left.

But if it's about standards, how come the following non-left MPs who have been accused of racism do meet the party's "high standards"?> Steve Reed sits in Keir Starmer’s shadow cabinet despite having had to apologise for calling a Jewish businessman a “puppet master” in 2020.

Despite Starmer’s purported “zero tolerance” of antisemitism, Reed faced no sanction and remained in Keir’s team.
thejc.com/news/uk/labour…

It's become a fact that Roger Waters had a pig emblazoned with the Star of David at his gig in Berlin.

It has been used by MPs to call for his shows to be pulled, featured in headlines in the Daily Mail, repeated by the BBC etc.

Except, he didn't. Here is the pig in Berlin: The inflatable pig is a reference to the album cover of Pink Floyd's Animals, which showed a pig flying above Battersea Power Station. That, in turn, was a reference to George Orwell's Animal Farm, which depicted pigs as tyrannical rulers.

"This is Keir Starmer you’re talking here" someone replied to me incredulously after I said he lived it up on expenses as DPP.

So let's look instead at the hospitality he's been enjoying lately: more than £22,000 worth in the last year alone—averaging £1,800 a month in freebies. Starmer was gifted £1,600 of tickets and hospitality for Spurs vs Arsenal in January by Getir, the rapid delivery company that has just got rid of around 300 UK workers with no notice, leaving the laid off employees "crying and angry." chargedretail.co.uk/2023/03/23/get…

NEW: Martin Forde, the KC asked by Keir Starmer to write a report on Labour's culture (that Keir ignored), breaks his silence, saying there's a hierarchy of racism under Starmer:

"Anti-black racism, Islamophobia, isn’t taken as seriously as antisemitism."
Forde: “Quite a high proportion of Black and Asian councillors or prospective MPs felt they'd been subjected to disciplinary action which had been deliberately timed to exclude them from qualifying processes or selection.”

At last some coverage in a mainstream publication of the damning Al Jazeera documentary The Labour Files.

The rest continue to ignore it.

"Members deserve answers about the revelations in Al Jazeera’s documentary—Labour has so far given none"
@MSuhail0
independent.co.uk/voices/labour-… The piece summarises some of the film's findings, especially on the "current of anti-Black racism and Islamophobia in the party under Starmer," and demands:

Saw Keir's "commitment" clip so checked the full thing. Ouch.

@afneil: A pledge is your word...So is it a pledge that these industries will be in your manifesto for nationalisation?

KS: Yes

And tuition fees?

"They're all pledges so the answer is yes..That's why it's a pledge" Watch to the end for a funny bit.

Update on Keir's honour & integrity. He's now fibbing about previous fibs.

He told @AndrewMarr9 his broken pledges were overridden by a promise of a "laser-like" focus on winning which he made in his closing speeches at leadership hustings.

Turns out that's not true either! >> It's daft to claim he was elected on the basis of one point he made at hustings events rather than on his campaign pledges, but anyway, he didn't even make it!

I've checked his closing speeches from six of the 2020 hustings and in none of them does he say what he now claims.

It's fair enough that people are unclear why this is significant.

It's not the breach, it's the hypocrisy.

To accept Keir's denial that he didn't break lockdown rules you have to believe he went back to work after his curry & beer, otherwise he was just socialising after work.> If Labour had any evidence of work after 10pm on a Friday night, believe me they wouldn't have sat through a week of bad front pages and excruciating interviews without producing it. If there were zoom calls there would be emails arranging them. And then there's the ops note...

Labour's NEC is proscribing the Alliance for Workers' Liberty (AWL).

Here is NEC member Luke Akehurst positively endorsing an article by "AWL guru Sean Matgamna."

I don't think @lukeakehurst should be expelled for this, but left wingers have been suspended for less. >> And here is Luke positively promoting an article on the AWL's website as part of a factional attack on another Labour Party member.

In his Guardian interview today, Keir Starmer says nationalisation isn't something "I’ve ever thought is right."

Yet when he wanted Labour members' votes in 2020, he promised to nationalise water and electricity not in some private meeting, but on national TV, on BBC Newsnight. He wasn't just asked if he generally liked nationalisation, he was asked specifically if it would be in Labour's next manifesto. "When you go into the next election, would you have any of these in your manifesto," he was asked, "renationalising water and electricity?"

"I'm not in favour of nationalisation," Keir says, which might come as a surprise to anyone who voted for him in 2017, 2019 or 2020.

Just 2 weeks ago Keir "stood by" his pledge that energy "should be in public hands, not making profits for shareholders."

"Renationalising electricity" — he raised his hand for it in the leadership election.

https://twitter.com/mattzarb/status/1442068396204433418?s=20

As I was saying...

Corbyn: "Nobody who was in a front bench position...would be allowed to take a second job...I made that very clear to everybody including him [Starmer]."

“He’s saying there was no such request made.”

“There was an absolutely clear request and decision made.”

https://twitter.com/LBC/status/1459493068734967811

To recap, Starmer's assertions about this second job business have now been flatly contradicted by Jeremy Corbyn on the record, by three then-members of the shadow cabinet, and by email and text evidence from the time.

Why he chose to dig this hole I do not know.

Contrary to claims by Starmer’s spokesperson yesterday, Starmer did turn down a lucrative second job in 2017 AFTER an intervention from Corbyn and his office. Since I reported that on Weds, Starmer has claimed it is "completely untrue." But emails and texts show that to be false. Starmer decided to turn down the job down on Tuesday 25 July 2017, saying "I have decided not to further the discussions." He now claims this was before Corbyn's staff "were even aware of it."

But this was more than 24 hours after Corbyn's staff had intervened.

Corbyn stopped Starmer taking a second job doing high-paid consultancy work for law firm Mishcon de Reya in 2017, several key figures from the Corbyn leadership have confirmed to me.

Starmer argued he should be free to take up the role, but Corbyn decided "absolutely no." >>> Starmer has tried to capitalise on Tory sleaze despite ditching Labour's 2019 pledge to ban MPs' second jobs.

Yet sources say Starmer wanted to take a lucrative second job while in the shadow cabinet, was blocked by Corbyn, and then pretended otherwise.

"You were in talks to take a job yourself."

"No I wasn't. I was in discussion." Credit to @SamCoatesSky for asking the question.

There's a lot of nonsense being spoken by the Labour leadership & its friendly media about how Keir fixing the leadership election rules for his faction is intended to empower trade unions. It isn't, and it won't. It's just a factional power grab. Here's why. > Even under the electoral college, trade union members have one member one vote in their section. They have minds of their own. Often, they don't vote for the candidate their union recommends (e.g. they voted for Blair). This change won't give union leaderships any more leverage.

Len McCluskey's revelation about the deal with Starmer to lift Corbyn's suspension has forced a response from Starmer's office. It's contradictory, weird & accidentally damning.

Most important: they don't contest any of the direct quotes Len provides.
theguardian.com/politics/2021/… For example look at this: direct quotes from Starmer, including the admission "He put me in an impossible position and I had no choice."

They don't deny he said it, they just say it doesn't mean what it means. "Labour sources denied those words were tantamount to an admission."

The real story of what happened with @JessicaLBarnard yesterday is incredible.

The party said she was sent a notice of investigation “in error”. That was mocked—how do you investigate someone & send them an intimidating letter at 1 am by mistake? But it was actually true. > True in the sense that it was done completely outside the official processes in what must count as the definition of bringing the party into disrepute.