Independent Media | Campaigning Journalism
The image that tells you all you need to know about the Labour leadership candidates
CORRECTION: This article was updated at 2.15pm on 23 January to acknowledge that the images used in this article, which were created by the article’s author, were inspired by images seen on Twitter, and to add a link to those images. The author would like to acknowledge and credit Ed Poole who, we are now aware, created similar images before this article was published. You can read more about The Canary‘s policy on attribution and crediting here.
Labour MPs Rebecca Long-Bailey, Emily Thornberry, Lisa Nandy, and Keir Starmer are all hoping to become the next leader of their party. But how strong have their records been in recent years? And how loyal have they been to the party’s efforts under outgoing leader Jeremy Corbyn? For the answer to those questions, look no further. Because, inspired by images on Twitter like those from Labour’s Ed Poole, The Canary has created an image that should tell you all you need to know about the leadership candidates.
Compare and contrast
To create the image, we compiled information on:
- How the MPs voted on the 2015 welfare benefit cap, the renewal of the Trident nuclear programme, and holding Tony Blair to account for misleading parliament over the invasion of Iraq.
- Who nominated Corbyn for leader in 2015 and who backed him in the 2016 leadership race.
- Who was a prominent public supporter of Labour’s disastrous second referendum policy on Brexit.
- Which prominent MPs nominated them in 2020.
As their respective voting records show (see R.L.B., E.T., L.N., K.S.), all candidates have backed public ownership of UK railways while voting against cutting corporation tax and welfare benefits. Long-Bailey has the strongest record regarding support for increasing taxes on banks, while both Nandy and Thornberry have voted against several such measures. All candidates, meanwhile, have good climate records, having voted consistently for measures seeking to tackle the climate crisis (although Nandy and Thornberry have a mixed record). They all have mixed records on the controversial process of fracking, having previously voted against increasing regulation of the practice.
What about the deputy leadership candidates?
While we were at it, we also created an image using information about the records of deputy leadership candidates Richard Burgon, Dawn Butler, Angela Rayner, Rosena Allin-Khan, and Ian Murray.
Hopefully, these images will give Labour members and supporters a good idea of what the candidates are all about.
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Elections
Are troublesome
Things
Do we vote
With our hearts
Or our heads?
This conundrum
We ken that
Both fig-leaves
Are dreadful
They’ll both
Be maligned
Found ‘guilty’
Of crimes
We’d never imagined
So do we vote
For Blair Mk II
Or one
Who’s got
The incumbent’s
Endorsement?
Why the fuck
Are we
Who’ve built these countries
Brick on brick
Who’ve built
This party
Through so
Many years
Left with a choice
Of two
‘Media
Rivals’?
When Burgess
Maguire and
Hardie, got together
In Bradford
To found our Party
They had no thoughts
Of Henderson
MacDonald, Kinnock
Bliar…….
They thought
Of Chartist principles
Not those modified
By Place
But those
That gave the vote
To each and
Every one of us
Holding close
Those whom
Our employers
Threw on parish ‘doles’
In other
Words
They aimed to
Build a New World
Not replicate
Those old hellish
‘Terms and Conditions’
Which of
Our ‘candidates’
Are offering that?
Helpful information. Thank you Ed
I found that very helpful too, thank you as well Ed.
Also, thank you caldy1, that is an elegant and interesting prose you posted, I like the style and the way it flows, whilst also posing much food for thought.
Appreciated Ed, the images found in your poetry.