Monday, July 25, 2016

more about the absence of any sort of plot re #Corbyn

Various bits about Corbyn and Labour Leadership will be in this blog because else the #EUref blog will be out of proportion. I still think the rewriting of referendum story as part of the leadership story is interesting but not so interesting to forget what the blog was about to start with.

Anyway here is a quote from Liz McInnes MP found through a tweet by Polly Toynbee.

Since my resignation I have been bombarded with conspiracy theories from some of Jeremy Corbyn’s supporters. I would like to confirm that I was not bullied into standing down, as some would have it. I have not been offered a job/promotion or any other incentive, another favourite conspiracy theory. Nor was I ‘got at’ by plotters, indeed I am unaware of any plot ever having existed. The series of resignations appeared to be an organic process triggered by the sacking of Hilary Benn, leading to members of the shadow cabinet considering their own position and making their own decisions. Some of them, like my colleagues Lilian Greenwood and Thangam Debbonaire, have since written very eloquently about their own experiences of Jeremy’s leadership. Their accounts are shocking and, knowing both Lillian and Thangam, I have no reason to doubt them.

This is where I find things hard to believe. Repeating previous blogs I get the early versions of newspapers in Exeter. Both Observer and Sunday Times had stories of  a move or whatever you want to call it against Corbyn with the Hilary Benn name very clearly reported. Later stories seemed to start with Benn being sacked for no clear reason. I do not see how any leader could allow the stories to be published as first appeared without doing something.

Later we are told that Hilary Benn was not the source of either story. So who was then? No plot, no coup , just a series of personal decisions made on the spur of the moment without any long term plan. Surely not.

This is just a blog so I have n way to find out other than ask questions. Not sure who reads this anyway. Somebody at either the Sunday Times or Observer might have a rough idea of how things come to happen. It was not that long ago.

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