Birmingham Hodge Hill MP Liam Byrne has announced bid to be Labour’s candidate
The SKWAWKBOX published news this morning that Hodge Hill MP Liam Byrne was to announce his bid to become Labour’s candidate for West Midlands ‘metro mayor’. The announcement followed on the West Midlands edition of the BBC’s Sunday Politics.
Byrne subsequently responded to the SKWAWKBOX’s enquiry with information about his bid and the reasons he is making it:
Yes, I’ve put my name forward today. The campaign – ”Radical Compassion’ – was actually born from the work Jeremy helped me launch last year – Winter of Compassion here in Birmingham and which Jeremy and I have talked about a lot.
As I intensified my work with Birmingham’s homeless community we developed the idea of our winter of Compassion campaign which Jeremy then helped me launch:
We want to put three ideas centre stage in the debate against a failing Tory mayor.
- Ending the moral emergency of homelessness, hungry families and cuts to disability benefits
- leading the green industrial revolution to create jobs and lift families out of poverty and
- rebuild the social solidarity of our diverse region.
More here: https://liambyrnemp.co.uk/content/manifesto
Further announcements over days to come. But if youre looking for a long read there’s this.
Liam Byrne co-founded ‘centrist’ pressure group Progress. He is a former First Secretary to the Treasury and left the now-infamous ‘no money left’ note for his Tory successor – a traditional practice of long standing but shamefully treated as serious by the Tories to underpin their austerity narrative. He has recently been praised for his work on homelessness.
Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell has confirmed his support for Byrne’s campaign. Momentum and its founder Jon Lansman have denied reports that they would do likewise. Other would-be candidates are expected to declare their interest.
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Progress? Jeremy this, Jeremy that! that shit will stop as soon as he gets what he wants, then he’ll revert to type!… i smell BS
”He is a former First Secretary to the Treasury and left the now-infamous ‘no money left’ note for his Tory successor – a traditional practice of long standing but shamefully treated as serious by the Tories to underpin their austerity narrative.”
So it’s now a: ”Traditional practice of long standing”, is it? Utter bullshit. IIRC there was never any note of the sort written.
”We want to put three ideas centre stage in the debate against a failing Tory mayor.
Ending the moral emergency of homelessness, hungry families and cuts to disability benefits.”
Prick. Was byrne as DWP sec wanted MORE people working for their dole, wanted MORE sanctioned for the most spurious of reasons, and more disabled found fit for work…As well as wanting to have a part in administering the utter clusterf*ck that is known as Universal Credit – in fact, byrne, YOU are as responsible as the toerags for all the things that have caused all the problems with hunger and homelessness with your desire to look like you’re some sort of badass.
Baldy little clown. Crash & burn.
So that’s four posts about this minor event, starting from reports of a rumour, then reports of denials of the rumour, through to probable ‘facts’ and conformation …
All for a punt at a possible candidacy?
This is pretty sloppy journalism, Skwawkkie!