ANDREW PIERCE: Will PR pals give Labour's Liz Kendall a red face?

ANDREW PIERCE: Will PR pals give Labour's Liz Kendall a red face?

07/06/2020

ANDREW PIERCE: Will PR pals give Labour’s Liz Kendall a red face?

As the Labour MP for Leicester West, one might expect Liz Kendall to spend this week focusing on her constituents, many of whom must be deeply concerned about the implementation of a second lockdown in the city. Well, don’t hold your breath.

For this Thursday, Kendall, who ran unsuccessfully for the Labour leadership in 2015, will take time off from dealing with the crisis engulfing her constituency to address the blue-chip clients of leading British PR outfit Burson Cohn & Wolfe (BCW).

The advance publicity says: ‘Liz will be talking about the future of health and social care policy in the UK.’ 

It says a lot about the woman who may be Labour’s next Health Secretary that she believes it’s appropriate to talk to a PR company favoured by cigarette and weapon manufacturers

Naturally, it fails to mention that BCW’s clients include Raytheon, the U.S. missile manufacturer. Nor does it highlight that BCW also advises Imperial Brands, better known as Imperial Tobacco, which produces Players, Winston and Gauloise cigarettes.

As Shadow Minister for Social Care, Kendall will know full well that smoking-related deaths last year were estimated at 78,000 in the UK — considerably more than the number from Covid-19.

It says a lot about the woman who may be Labour’s next Health Secretary that she believes it’s appropriate to talk to a PR company favoured by cigarette and weapon manufacturers.

The fact that she would do so when her constituents most need her perhaps makes it even more shocking.

As the Labour MP for Leicester West, one might expect Liz Kendall to spend this week focusing on her constituents, many of whom must be deeply concerned about the implementation of a second lockdown in the city. The city centre is pictured above

The Green Party has long been committed to abolishing the ‘undemocratic’ House of Lords and replacing it with a fully elected second chamber.

So why is the party, which already has two peers, set to ask its supporters who should be put forward for the House of Lords if it needs to appoint an additional member?

What hypocrites! For a bunch of environmentalists, their principles seem like a load of hot air.

It’s on the House! 

Three of Parliament’s bars are reopening today — albeit without any of the safeguards imposed on England’s pubs, including taking names of drinkers. 

Thirsty MPs clearly don’t wish to be traced! 

Look who’s next door, Luciana!

One of the most high-profile Labour MPs to quit over the party’s failure to root out antisemitism was Luciana Berger. 

At one point, the Jewish MP for Liverpool Wavertree received so much horrific abuse that she had to attend a Labour Party conference with bodyguards.

Berger, who stood unsuccessfully for the Lib Dems at the last General Election, has since moved on. She is now managing director of public affairs company Edelman, which is based in Southside, a swish office block in London’s Victoria.

Yet one suspects Berger has enjoyed working from home recently.

For who are the other tenants? The Labour Party, of course.

Watching a Top Of The Pops rerun, Labour MP Stella Creasy admitted: ‘I now realise how smart [my mother] was in her parenting. She said I could have that Kylie Minogue perm but only when I was 15 — thus knowing given time even I would recognise the error of my ways and put down the peroxide.’ The hairdressers are now open should you have a relapse, Stella. 

Quote of the week: When Northern Ireland astrophysicist Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell was asked if she would like to be honoured with a statue, she replied: ‘It depends on how far down my blouse will be unbuttoned.’ 

Working in the Hansard team that delivers official verbatim reports of what is said in Parliament can’t be the easiest of jobs at the best of times.

But last week, they were really put to the test by Mark Jenkinson, the new Tory MP for Workington.

As the son of a binman and an office clerk, who himself was once a British Steel apprentice, he told the Commons that the traditional way to identify a fellow Cumbrian was by asking: ‘As thou e’er sin cuddy lowp a five-barred yat?’

(It translates as: ‘Have you ever seen a donkey jump a five-barred gate?’)

Naturally, the Hansard writers reproduced it word perfect.

Working in the Hansard team that delivers official verbatim reports of what is said in Parliament can’t be the easiest of jobs at the best of times. But last week, they were really put to the test by Mark Jenkinson, the new Tory MP for Workington. The Commons is seen above

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