Hard leftist Jeremy Corbyn is already avoiding troubling questions from the press over how many women he will appoint to his cabinet, after he pledged that a majority of his shadow cabinet will be female.
Questioned over this by Sky’s political reporter Darren McCaffrey, the North Islington MP and recent winner of the Labour leadership election kept shtum, having attacked the media’s treatment of previous leader Ed Miliband in his victory speech on Saturday.
WATCH: Jeremy #Corbyn refuse to answer any questions about the lack of women in senior shadow cabinet positions. pic.twitter.com/cCjkNi9MI5
— Darren McCaffrey (@DMcCaffreySKY) September 14, 2015
Corbyn is already under attack for having given the three most senior shadow cabinet roles to penis-owners John McDonnell (shadow chancellor), Hilary Benn (shadow foreign secretary and Andy Burnham (shadow home secretary), a leadership rival who had said Corbyn’s victory would be a “disaster” for the party.
This followed Tom Watson’s victory in the deputy leadership election for Labour, the West Bromwich MP triumphing over Stella Creasy, Angela Eagle and Caroline Flint, amid much whining from the Left that voters should adopt sexist voting tactics.
Corbyn confirmed via Twitter that such tactics would apply to his cabinet selection, building on a prior promise to make half of the cabinet female rather than selecting purely on merit.
We can also now confirm that the Shadow Cabinet will have a majority of women. #Anewkindofpolitics — JeremyCorbyn4PM (@JeremyCorbyn4PM) September 13, 2015
In an interview with the Beeb’s Victoria Derbyshire, McDonnell said that the education and health portfolios, the latter of which will be taken by Heidi Alexander, were more important to the public than the three great offices of state, a hierarchy he attacked as an imperialist throwback.
Corbyn and friends confrontation with the media and rejection of cabinet norms is perhaps a glimmer of the revolution that has occurred within Labour within the last few months, or an example of the very spin that the Labour leader purports to stand against.
Image Credit – Jeremy Corbyn, No More War at Parliament Square, August 2014, Garry Knight
