It's been less than a week since the election was called. At the end of last week Dawn Butler had a car crash interview on the PM programme with Eddie Mair. In it she was trying to claim that Theresa May had rigged the election, by calling it! It's a pretty unusual claim. She then said it had been rigged because the PM had got around the Fixed Term Parliament's Act, but when challenged that Labour had voted for it she had no real response. She then claimed it had been rigged because the Tories were reducing the number of MPs to 600. When asked how many MPs there would be after the election, she had to say the truth: there would be 650 (the boundary changes come in next year). It was a horrific interview!
Jeremy Corbyn managed to last at least a few days without getting into serious trouble but then came his 'big' Sunday interview with Andrew Marr. The first question posed was very hypothetical, if Jeremy Corbyn was elected the first task would be to write letters to the nuclear submarine captains with instructions what to do if Britain had been struck and there was no command structure. Corbyn responded: 'I would stress that we believe in a non nuclear world'. Well, I'm sure the sub captains will find that very reassuring. He went on: 'We believe in peaceful negotiations, and shall try to get the 6 parties together for talks on Korea'. Sure, that's all well and good PM, should I press the button?
When asked if the policy was still for trident renewal, he said the manifesto was not finished yet and that it was up for discussion. Today on the Daily Politics the shadow defence spokeswoman, Nia Griffiths, distanced herself and said the Labour Party policy is to renew trident. Great, but we know, as do all our enemies, that if they strike first, our sub commanders will open envelopes with nothing better than a 'Get Well Soon' message inside! Not much of a deterrence, but then Corbyn doesn't quite understand that principle!
When Corbyn, finally squeaked out something approaching a decent answer to Andrew Marr on the submarine question it was 'Wait for orders' - which would be great if Downing Street had not been annihilated.
The other interesting question was about a drone strike on the leader of ISIS, al-Baghdadi, if the defence and intelligence staff had good knowledge of his whereabouts. Again Corbyn could not say, 'let's take out the bastard' and made usual noises about negotiation and it would be better if he was not around but without any decisive action.
As expected, a complete shower. He will need to answer some of these questions better soon.
Squiffy.
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