Jeremy Corbyn is a let down, says Ben Elton: ANDREW PIERCE reports on the Labour Party conference
By Andrew Pierce for the Daily Mail
Published: 20:09 EDT, 24 September 2019 | Updated: 06:26 EDT, 25 September 2019
One could be forgiven for thinking Labour is the home of Britain’s luvvies.
But comedian and playwright Ben Elton, who attended General Election rallies with former leader Ed Miliband, certainly isn’t a cheerleader for Jeremy Corbyn.
‘Never did I believe I would be living in a Britain in which there is so much talk about anti-Semitism,’ he told the Jewish Chronicle yesterday.
Comedian and playwright Ben Elton, who attended General Election rallies with former leader Ed Miliband, certainly isn’t a cheerleader for Jeremy Corbyn, writes ANDREW PIERCE
The writer for The Young Ones and Blackadder, who also collaborated with Andrew Lloyd Webber on West End musicals, said ‘Corbyn has let us down horribly’ and ‘needed to get a grip’.
A Labour Party member, Elton says there are aspects of the Labour leader he admires but maintains that Corbyn displays an ‘inability to show moral leadership and firm guidance on what is, and in my view remains, a serious issue’.
Even for this Labour-supporting comedian, Corbyn’s bigotry is no laughing matter.
I-SPY
Labour might be suffering a celebrity exodus, but Paul McGann, the eighth incarnation of Doctor Who, was spotted at conference yesterday. No word yet on which monsters he encountered.
Paul McGann, the eighth incarnation of Doctor Who, was spotted at Labour’s party conference
Unfortunate scheduling of the day
Shadow business secretary Rebecca Long-Bailey toured TV and radio studios yesterday ahead of her keynote speech
Tipped as a future leader, Rebecca Long-Bailey, the shadow business secretary, toured TV and radio studios yesterday ahead of her keynote speech.
But given it clashed with the delivery of the Supreme Court verdict, the hall was virtually deserted.
To make matters worse, as Long-Bailey finished her address, Jeremy Corbyn quickly marched onto the stage to welcome the court ruling — denying Long-Bailey the standard standing ovation given to shadow cabinet members.
No prize for taste
At an event organised by the Left-wing Labour Representation Committee, whose president is John McDonnell, the raffle prize was two signed cartoons by the Guardian’s Steve Bell that the paper deemed too anti-Semitic to publish.
Laura Alvarez, wife of Jeremy Corbyn, was spotted at the event — though Labour claims she was there by accident.
Two people certainly not there by accident were Jackie Walker, a Corbynista expelled for claiming Jews funded the slave trade, and Derby North MP Chris Williamson, suspended over comments about Labour’s anti-Semitism.
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