by Paul WAUGH | Politics
As pointed out here yesterday, the essence of good manners is to make your guest feel comfortable. And last night The Queen decided she really didn’t need to force Jeremy Corbyn to kneel (or hop) before her in order to enter a centuries-old body that will give him access to security briefings. So after a quick oath and ceremonial kiss of the hand (which may also have been relaxed to a mere nod towards the Monarch), he was in the Privy Council. Jezza stood (literally) by his principles.
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| * Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn. (Credit: via The Waugh Zone) |
In local ITV News footage recorded before, but released after, his trip to Buck House, the Labour leader had given the game away by saying ‘I don’t expect to be kneeling at all’. He’d also told local BBC news ‘it’s going to be a very normal kind of occasion’. When asked afterwards if he’d knelt, his aides said ‘he complied with the normal processes’.
Turns out that this was the new normal, however, not the old one. Kneeling on a stool had been forced on previous ministers but I understand that the Palace had indicated to Team Corbyn some time ago that it was not necessary.
Everyone in the Labour party is slowing getting to grips with the new normal too. Gaby Hinsliff has a good piece in the Guardian on how ‘moderates’ are accepting there’s nowt they can do but let the Corbyn era play itself out.
Still not everyone is so sanguine. In the FT, one Labour insider said that Mr Corbyn’s call for discipline at this week’s Shadow Cabinet was “Nixonian”: “It’s not disloyal when the leader does it”. Diane Abbott writes for HuffPost today in defence of Jezza’s two months - yes only two months!- as Labour leader.
The Sun digs up a 2009 column by Seumas Milne that declared UK troops were dying in Afghanistan “because they are occupiers in another Muslim country where they’re not wanted”. It got SAS hero Andy McNab and a military family respond.
Meanwhile HuffPostUK has a new poll for our Men’s Month, revealing Prince William (25%) tops the list of global male role models, ahead of Barack Obama (9%), David Beckham (14%). But guess what? Jeremy Corbyn (5%) beats David Cameron on the list (1%).
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| * Paul Waugh |
* Paul Waugh is the Executive Editor, Politics, HuffPost UK.
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