Saturday Alan Johnson Hull West and Hessle MP has joined the anti Corbyn smear a day campaign. To be fair he has been openly opposing Corbyn before Jeremy was even elected as party leader. Alan Johnson is my MP in Hull West and Hessle. He represents the Labour Party and unlike many of his colleagues in the party he is from working-class stock. Wikipedia writes "Just three weeks before the 1997 general election, Johnson was selected to stand for parliament in the safe Labour seat of Hull West and Hessle when the previous incumbent, Stuart Randall, stood down suddenly. Randall was subsequently elevated to the House of Lords." According to a local source Randall stood down in exchange for the elevation to the Lords and Johnson was as they say "parachuted" into Hull. Johnson was not a local man. He had a tough start in life and you can read his story in "This Boy." Reviewing the book Chris Mullins writes in the Guardian of Johnson's childhood: It was a world of slum landlords, gang warfare, race riots and, it must be said, a strong sense of community. His first home was two rooms in a tenement that, even before the war, had been declared unfit for habitation. There was no indoor toilet, no bathroom, the kitchen was a stove on the landing and the electricity was metered, which meant the family were constantly scrabbling for shillings and often had to rely on candles for light. As a young teenager he recounts walking the streets with an old pram scavenging for coal and the repeated humiliation of having to ask local shopkeepers for goods on tick. But so many other ordinary people shared a similar childhood in the 50s and 60s. We may have had a Mum and working Dad and a small rented slum property but we had many problems. We also had to shop on tick at times at the local corner shop, experienced a stabbing in our local laundry, went to school with a family of brutal thieving rogues, lived in a two up two down, with no inside loo or bathroom, played on bomb sites and more. While some things have improved each decade for successive generations there remain various challenges for the working and middle class. The only constant winners are the very wealthy and what used to be called the upper classes. But Saturday in the smear a day campaign against Jeremy Corbyn Alan Johnson has featured across the mainstream media bad mouthing Mr Corbyn and his supporters. His careless disregard for the Labour Party, its reputation and its electability are sickening. The Telegraph opts for "Labour crisis: Alan Johnson demands relentless rebellion against Jeremy Corbyn's leadership." Mr Johnson's opinion piece is in all the main right-wing publications. These days of course he could hardly describe himself as working class. Some of us will always be working class but it is unlikely Johnson feels that way. Is he burning his labour bridges attacking Corbyn or has he nothing to lose? Aged 66 he could be about to retire but he does have an eye on a mayoral role in the Northern powerhouse plans. Then there are local boundary changes which could hit Johnson's constituency and election chances. He has openly opposed Jeremy Corbyn from day one, at times childishly citing Corbyn's rebellious track record in the House of Commons but the timing of his latest attack stinks. I guess the difference some MPs fail to recognise is Corbyn rebelled due to principles while others such as Johnson do so out of spite. When in the summer of 2016 Johnson's CLP held a meeting to vote on supporting Mr Corbyn Johnson was not present. He was, some would say conveniently, away. It could have been re-timed of course had he wanted to attend. When Mr Corbyn held a rally in Hull city centre non of the three Hull Labour MPs attended unless they did so incognito or by proxy. But at an Owen Smith event in Hull two of the three local MPs attended and one confirmed the third would have been there but she was on holiday. This blogger attended the meeting and the two rallies. Johnson's, my, CLP voted unanimously to support Corbyn:
"Mr Johnson, the former Home Secretary, condemned Mr Corbyn as “useless”, “incompetent” and “incapable” of running a political party, and called on rebels not to give up their efforts to oust him." The use of words such as moderate, soft left, left, hard left and "bourgeois concept" highlight how out of touch Johnson is. "They've captured the castle," he said. "Just as the [Left-wing] Campaign group carried on year after year undermining whoever was the Labour leader, so we've got to do the same. We've got to recapture this party again otherwise it's dead and finished and gone." Jeremy Corbyn is set to win the leadership election again although nothing is ever certain in this life apart from death. The number of people being purged from the party for sometimes silly reasons continues to grow. The majority if not all appear to be Corbyn supporters. A series of MPs and hard right members of Labour, that is my tit for tat retort to hard left, are abusive on social media but still sitting pretty. I have voted Labour all my eligible years and for Mr Johnson since he arrived in the city. I will never vote for him again and I am not alone. How could I when he no longer represents me? http://www.newtekjournalismukworld.com/british-political-scene/hull-west-clp-vote-to-support-jeremy-corbyn http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/17/labour-crisis-alan-johnson-demands-relentless-rebellion-against/
Martyn Wood-Bevan
18/9/2016 02:24:47 pm
Alan Johnson wasn't even aware of the Tory election fraud scandal featured for weeks on Channel 4 News. He also performed very badly during the Referendum and presented as genuinely wishy-washy. Another flown in MP just like Owen's Myth who has no roots in Pontypridd either (like Angel Eagle, Tristram Hunt and many others).
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Eileen
18/9/2016 03:54:19 pm
Yes it must though they are rare.
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No Name In Case Of Gerrymandering
18/9/2016 09:42:37 pm
I too was at the CLP meeting when we voted to back JC, I too will never vote for AJ again. I hope the CLP deselect him.
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Eileen
19/9/2016 09:56:52 pm
I hear you thanks
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Bob
8/10/2016 06:10:25 pm
Mr Johnson recently saw fit to generalise about Jeremy Corbyn's supporters by labelling them "tyrannical middle-class smart-arses" and yet has not been suspended from the party for abuse. It would appear there may well be at least one tyrannical middle-class smart-arse in the Labour Party and his name is Johnson.
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