In the House if Commons last night, Labour’s foreign affairs spokesperson, Emily Thornberry has apologised for comparing the Liberal Democrat’s to the Taliban:
She said at the start of her speech tonight:
Can I take this opportunity Mr Speaker, because we are debating vital issues int he Middle East, to apologise publicly to my Liberal Democrat colleagues for my crass throwaway Taliban remark in an interview last week.
I’m sorry for what I said and I believe that our politics is better when we can be honest and apologise for our mistakes.
A lesson that Her Majesty’s Prime Minister would be well placed to learn.”
Follow @LibDemVoice on Twitter
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
Encounters
The Time I Met Paul O'Grady and Lily Savage at the Same Time
Satisfaction with the NHS falls to lowest level since records began in 1983
Ed Davey launches Lib Dem local elections campaign in Berkhamsted
My tweets
UK Government to reintroduce Victorian prison hulks?
Roads and pavements improvements for the West End 2023/24 #dundeewestend
Paul Barker
Nonconformistradical
Mary Reid
Gordon
16 Comments
Perhaps the PM should take a lesson in saying sorry. Ms Thornberry had the grace to apologise .
Where an unrepentant PM used his bully boy tactics. His actions remind of the “Tom Brown’s school days”.A bully called Flashman. His home bug comment on abuse of MPs was absolutely disgusting . It is also alarming that Jo’s son is being threatened. This rise of popularism has taken us back to the 1930s.
I hope that the opposition will meet later today . My hope is a charge of contempt of parliament will be brought against him.
Good for her. So proud of our leader in last night’s “debate” and Layla Moran on Newsnight. Beyond belief that the PM used the term “humbug” when presented with the genuine emotion of a Labour MP who was sincerely worried about his tone and language.
Well done, Emily Thornberry.
I’m not a fan of hers in general, but this was classy.
Good on her. She’s quite a feisty lady, who might make an acceptable successor to JC. Anyone, who was prepared to muck out the toilets on a cross channel ferry, can’t be all that bad. I’ll even forgive her that tweet about the Cross of St George!
The PM and his Attorney General must have thought they were addressing the Reichstag in about 1932. There is a very clear resemblance if you have seen the BBC Rise of the Nazis series. It is frightening.
@nevelope2003
The main difference was that the MPs in the Reichstag were seated in a semi circle. It was recorded even back then. I remember years ago listening to a recording of what the commentator referred to as “torbulente Auseinandersetzungen “, which included an admonition from the ‘Reichstagspräsident’ of one Walter Ulbricht who, twenty years or so later, emerged as the General Secretary of the SED, the de facto ruler of the former German Democratic Republic.
When did we manage first to record the proceedings of OUR parliament?
Thornberry’s apology would have been more sincere if she’d omitted the silly jibe about the Prime Minister.
I didn’t think this would happen, so, thank you for your apology Emily Thornberry.
Most likely her motivation to apologise was to make the jibe at Mr Johnson. But if people want to believe she did it out of sincerity, then it’s their choice. She’s one of the least humble and sincere politicians, but if people want to believe she’s suddenly changed then good on them
Well done Emily Thornberry, that was classy.
What’s been upsetting me so much, much more than anything else, though, is that Johnson and the right are battering everyone else for denying Brexit – but they all voted against it three times (him twice) when they had a majority. No one campaigned for a no deal Brexit – why are we not battering home the message that we (and I mean all remainders) are not allowing history to be rewritten ?
I welcome the apology, if it was sincerely meant. But the cynic in me thinks that this is political calculation on Thornberry’s part: she knows that Labour’s polling is dire under the party’s current leadership, and that Labour will need the LD’s help if it is to have any chance of forming a government.
@Yeovil Yokel “But the cynic in me thinks that this is political calculation on Thornberry’s part”
Having watched the video of the apology, it came across as sincere enough to me.
I agree with James Pugh that this was really a way to make a dig at BoJo, but I’d still take the apology and use it back at them.
I’m not sure I’d take the Flashman comparison much further, given his later career and memoirs!
Surely she did what should be the normal thing to do, and was entitled to add a comment
re our very special PM.