9 Comments

• Peter Martin 4th May '19 - 3:00pm

  But he didn’t feel the need to leave when Tony Blair was invading Iraq?

• Mick Taylor 4th May '19 - 4:37pm

  There shall be more joy over one sinner that repents, more than over ninety and nine just persons.

• John Marriott 4th May '19 - 6:37pm

  All this crowing Is unbecoming. What about Rachel Johnson, briefly a Lib Dem, now a Change UK candidate in the Euros? Leave it out!

• frankie 4th May '19 - 7:22pm

  There is a major difference between Tony Robinson, a man who has dedicated decades to a poltical party he now feels he can no longer belong too and Rachel Johnson who seems to hop from party to party looking for the biggest headline and best role (it must be a Johnson thing). The problem we have is we have too many Rachel’s and not enough Tony’s ( and that goes for all parties).

• Brian Evans 5th May '19 - 8:03am

  Notwithstanding the underlying expressions of regret and betrayal, the tweet shows an interesting misuse of apostrophes. Did TR suddenly get another burst of conscience after using two incorrectly that he succumbed to inconsistency and got the third ‘its’ correct?

• Richard Underhill 5th May '19 - 8:36am

  Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn need a cunning plan. Let’s start with Theresa May.
  She should remember previous PM John Major who described disloyal MPs as “bastards”. Some of them are still MPs. He withdrew the whip from eight of them. They were joined by a ninth to comments about “the sound of white coats flapping”.
  At the Liaison Committee she commented on the voting records of two of them, both ERG, a party within a party. She could start with the stone-faced Bill Cash, who used to PMQ to call for her resignation. She might reasonably feel that he is part of the problem. On the opposition benches he could be ignored. He is unlikely to join the Labour Party. Change UK – the Independent Group have criteria that Bill Cash is unlikely to meet.
  She is inviting Jeremy Corbyn to “dip his hands in the blood”. This is an unlikely coalition. JC is unlikely to fall for it, knowing that he has several MPs who would make a better PM than he would if Labour’s convoluted processes were to elect one of them. He wants her to call a general election, which she has promised her party not to do, knowing that she has thrown away the Commons majority that David Cameron left her.

• Robert Sayer 5th May '19 - 9:12am

  Tony Robinson is one of many thousands of people who would never countenance voting anything but the party they started voting for. I am like that, I believe in Liberal Democracy but I hated the student fee fiasco,not that it wasnt right but we had promised not to support them.I had to go through the period of the SDP amalgamation, locally that was a very difficult time. But I stayed and represented,worked and spent most of my free time for the party. Why, because the preamble was the central plank it was rarely abused and I found peace with reading it. Tony Robinson has nothing worthwhile to sustain him and many thousands of Labour supporters are realising that. For the Tories it is hiding in the undergrowth of the party that those who have a cunning plan for their party have begun to emerge

• Chris Leeds 5th May '19 - 11:22am

  “Tony Robinson has nothing worthwhile to sustain him and many thousands of Labour supporters are realising that.”

  Absolutely spot on Robert. Anyone with strong tribal loyalty to a political party puts up with a lot before they finally turn against it. Tony Robinson was a Labour Party member for 45 years.

  I know just where he ‘s coming from. I came from a multi generational Labour Party tradition. I was a Labour Councillor and constituency party Chair. I left the Labour Party many years ago when I began to find myself more inclined to vote Liberal Democrat in most elections. That went on for many years before I finally admitted to myself that I’m not a socialist, but a liberal internationalist.

  Two years ago, I became a Lib Dem member. I’ve found a very welcoming home there and it feels like it’s where I belong.

  I would have taken that step many years previously if I could have shaken off the residual tribal loyalty to something I no longer believed in.

  I suspect Tony Robinson has experienced similar dilemmas. I take my hat off to him.

• Charles Rothwell 6th May '19 - 2:32pm

  I was among the thousands who turned to Labour after the disasters of 2014-2015 (initiated by Clegg’s catastrophic decision to “take on” Farage in the televised debates (and which, in reality, cleared the way for the Kipper victories in the 2014 local/EP elections and which in turn set things rolling for Cameron’s calamitous decision on/handling of the whole EU referendum mess)). Given what Corbyn/McDonnell etc. are now up to, I am within an ace of following Tony Robinson’s lead (and very likely rejoining the LDs (at least as a Supporter to begin with)). (The fact that Clegg is well out of the way (on some beach in California/at Facebook HQ) is also, I must admit, an added inducement).