The people who made this hilarious homage to Jess Phillips deserve a medal

Jess Phillips
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While Jess Phillips was still in the Labour leadership race, many saw her as the “most right-wing candidate”. She has now passed the baton to Lisa Nandy and Keir Starmer, who are also pitching to the Labour right. But one group of satirical musicians couldn’t let Phillips leave the race without a special homage to her disastrous campaign.

Phillips: not what Labour supporters wanted or needed

According to i News, Phillips was offering “Blair-like electoralism of a give-them-what-they-want sort”. She also had a strong anti-Corbyn record and reportedly once praised hard-right MP Jacob Rees-Mogg as a “true gent”.

Phillips had long been a favourite among out-of-touch media hacks. And her withdrawal from the leadership race inspired fawning headlines like Jess Phillips pulling out of the Labour race means party members won’t hear uncomfortable truths and Jess Phillips’s exit is a lesson in the limits of “straight-talking” politics. The truth, however, was that she simply offered nothing of interest to the majority of Labour supporters. So as Jacobin pointed out, her campaign ended up as “a cautionary tale for substanceless centrists”.

‘A Kendall in the wind’

With all of this in mind, satirical songwriters The Iain Duncan Smiths invoked the spirit of failed 2015 Blairite candidate Liz Kendall in their hilarious tribute to Jess Phillips:

All those celebrating Phillips’s withdrawal will surely find this song to be a fitting tribute.

Featured image via Channel 4 News/YouTube

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  • Show Comments
    1. The Canary at last acknowledges a ‘ disastrous campaign’.

      Oh but hold on, not Jeremy Corbyn’s annihilation in Labour’s worst election result since 1935. No no no…..of course not.

      The independent news outlet is mocking Jess Phillips. Thank god we are protected from the MSM gutter press with objective reporting on all the candidates by the Canary.

    2. The thing about Phillips is she’s completely vacuous. Apart from wanting to be PM she had nothing to say. She affects this straight talking persona but says absolutely nothing apart from attacking rivals in the party.

    3. Phillips tries to pass herself off as an authentic oik. Look at her background. Dad a teacher, mum a high ranking official, she educated in a prestigious, selective school, then university, then working in mum and dad’s business. Phoney in every fibre. Imitating Trump and trying to appeal to a base. Base is what she is.

    4. Since when has having a parent who was a teacher been a problem for a Labour leader.
      Shows how far removed the Corbynites and their activist meetings are from the real world people live in. The electorate won’t believe them. Oh, but we just discovered that last month didn’t we. But make yourselves feel better for another 5 years going around Tory bashing leaving the way cleat for Johnson, Raab et al. How they must love you lot. And laugh.

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