There are very many reasons to criticise the Labour Party at the moment. The way they fell into George Osborne’s political trap when they should have tied him up in knots is just one. And while I’m at it, John McDonnell, if you’re going to get a bit passive aggressive with people in the Chamber, don’t immediately apologise. Either don’t do it at all, or do it with confidence. His responses to James Cleverly and Lucy Frazer show that he’s far too easy to wind up. You just can’t give that sort of ground. The lack of front bench experience is really showing here.
There is more than enough political carnage in which the right wing press can rub Labour’s nose. It really, really doesn’t need to make a story out of Jeremy Corbyn’s wife, Laura Alvarez, not going to the state banquet for the Chinese President. She has her own life. Why should she be obliged to go to her husband’s work event? It’s not the first time something like this has happened. A couple of years ago, one of the BBC team mentioned in censorious terms that Miriam Gonzalez Durantez had not been at Liberal Democrat conference all week. She’d gone back on Sunday night and only returned for Nick’s speech. Well, blow me down, she actually went to work? What a scandal! I complained to the BBC about that one and got precisely nowhere.
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