Just as jokes about Lord Chilcot telling Corbyn to get a move on and Labour’s adoption of state of Perpetual Reshuffle were beginning to pall, the final revised Shadow Cabinet line up was announced. The most fancied probable scalp, Hilary Benn, kept his position as Shadow Foreign Secretary, but Angela Eagle was moved from Defence to Culture, replacing one of two sacked ministers, Michael Dugher. Emily Thornberry is to be Eagle’s replacement in the Defence role.
Dugher immediately changed his Twitter biography. This now opens:
Sacked by Jeremy Corbyn for too much straight talking, honest politics.
Europe spokesman Pat McFadden was also sacked – for alleged ‘incompetence and disloyalty’ – and has responded equally robustly.
According to the Independent’s Jane Merrick, John McDonnell has confirmed that McFadden’s criticisms of Stop the War played a part in the decision because he would have known this would be interpreted as an attack on Corbyn.
habibi adds: ah, “the view that sees terrorist acts as always being a response or reaction to what we in the west do” rings a certain bell.
7/7:
Alan Henning:
Gene adds: In the laugh-to-keep-from-crying category, someone might want to write new lyrics for this and call it “The Corbyn Reshuffle”:
The whole video would fit pretty closely, but I think the clip at 2:34 is particularly apropos.
