Starmer’s Luck Runs Out In Rochdale

It was ITV politics editor Robert Peston who concluded that, thus far, Keir Starmer had been lucky. That he has: our free and fearless press has not given him a fraction of the stick they gave Jeremy Corbyn, the electorate hates the Tories so much they are not so bothered with the occasional Labour wobble, and the poll leads keep on growing as the Tories foul up again.

But, as Hari Georgeson and the Buddha reminded us, all things must pass. The upcoming Rochdale by-election has shown Labour overseeing the political shit-show to end all political shit-shows, ending up with the party disowning its own candidate and so most likely to lose a safe seat.

Where did it all go wrong? The first bit is straightforward: Azhar Ali, who won the selection battle, was not subjected to due diligence for his past utterances. So the right-wing press did the job Labour omitted. And they soon discovered that Ali had been peddling the wacko conspiracy theory that the Hamas raid on southern Israel on October 7 last was an inside job.

But then a problem entered: this discovery had occurred after the deadline for nominations. Labour could not submit another candidate in Ali’s place. So a number of voices who had previously passed severely adverse comment on anything to do with Corbyn’s leadership thoroughly devalued themselves by parading before the media to support Ali. Because Ali was a Blairite. He was one of them. They would therefore deem black to be white on his behalf.

John Rentoul, that most arch of arch-Blairites, told TalkTV “It’s very uncharacteristic in my experience of him, to be parroting a conspiracy theory”. It was clearly an isolated incident. Louise Ellman made her excuses. Ali had previously been supportive of her. Adam Langleben mused that “in any other by-election” Labour should have pulled their candidate. But not this one.

Mike Katz asserted that Ali “has a mountain to climb” to repair his relationship with the Jewish community. All three are apparently part of the Jewish Labour Movement, which had previously applauded Starmer kicking groups that had been supportive of Corbyn out of Labour. It’s almost as if they are flexible enough on principle to make allowances for someone on “their side”.

And then push came to shove: the Mail had more evidence of what should have been picked up in a proper due diligence exercise. Like the one not performed by the Labour leadership. At this point, Starmer about turned and pulled party support from Azhar Ali. A safe Labour seat lost because of factionalism, stupidity, stubbornness and basic ineptitude.

So it was that Louise Ellman appeared on the Radio 4 Today programme to explain why she had given Ali a free pass yesterday, but not today, and it was quite right that he had been dumped. The Mail, for its part, approved of Starmer’s action so much that, for once, their front page splash referred to him by his Christian name, a privilege usually reserved for Tories.

Labour’s leadership can count itself fortunate that the Tories are in such a mess, and highly likely to lose both by-elections coming up later this week, as to change very few minds. Where their luck has run out is that claims of having zero tolerance of anti-Semitism have been shown to be complete bunk. And dumping on Corbyn shown to be a complete sham.

Blair didn’t need to behave like this. Nor should Starmer. That is all.

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