The new Labour government is they love business, and you think this is so weird … Mark Thomas Comedy Product s3e3: Geoffrey Robinson
Geoffrey Robinson: what we’ll do is have a conference about Geoffrey Robinson … He refused to take a breath test … How did the car get be on the hard shoulder of the M6? … Managed to shoot his own son in the foot with a shotgun … We started to look at his company accounts … with basically no accounting staff … Money and business and contacts and all of that … The Private Finance Initiative is a big scheme … Geoffrey is a big motor behind that … taking out a mortgage … We started looking at his other business accounts … Geoffrey lost £4m because the share value of his company dropped, then he’s got the loan out to Mandelson … He owns New Statesman magazine: New Statesman magazine has never made a profit … ibid.
Every seen a fairy? No. No. You haven’t. And that is because every time Jack Straw opens his mouth he kills the fuckers, it is wholesale fairy slaughter, it is fucking dingly-dell holocaust. Mark Thomas Comedy Product s4e10: Government Accountability
Labour ministers are buying properties in Wimbledon to rent out … ‘The chums’ … I was told the names … You really want to fucking know! … Mark Thomas Comedy Product s5e3: Michael Meacher
The Labour Tribune: voice of the Labour left. And that voice is … help! Mark Thomas Comedy Product s5e5: Balfour Beatty
Mr Wilson’s resignation came as a shock … He secretly called two BBC journalists and gave them a scoop, what he called the British Watergate. He said that as prime minister he had been unable to run the country; instead, powerful sections of the establishment had been working so hard to get rid of him we had come within an inch of our very own military coup. The Plot Against Harold Wilson, BBC 2006
‘Democracy as we know it is in great danger … Dirty tricks have been going on’ … ibid.
What dark forces had driven the former prime minister into the arms of our journalist? ibid.
He criticised the stranglehold on power exercised by the British establishment. ibid.
The establishment really felt Wilson was hitting them below the belt. ibid.
Wilson had been a frequent flier to the Soviet block. ibid.
Wilson was right: he was being bugged and someone was looking for something. ibid.
The coup was aborted, partly because the Conservatives were confident they could beat Wilson at the ballot box. ibid.
Former military officers like General Walter Walker and Major Alexander Greenwood began to form private armies, thousands strong to protect queen and country. ibid.
The plotters never got their coup. ibid.
[James] Angleton claimed he had given proof of Wilson’s treachery to the head of MI5, Roger Hollis. ibid.
The Battle for the Soul of the Labour Party: the leader Jeremy Corbyn adored by his supporters but challenged by his own MPs. We’ve been on the front line of Labour’s civil war. Panorama: Labour, Is the Party Over? BBC 2016
After a decade of plotting and planning to become prime minister Gordon Brown finally ascended to the throne in June last year. Since then there’s been the self-wounding blunder of the election that never was. There have been massacres at the polls and accusations of incompetence. Dispatches with Andrew Rawnsley: Gordon Brown: Where Did It All Go Wrong? Channel 4 2008
Many senior conservatives thought they would have been defeated in an autumn election. ibid.
‘He’s the first prime minister in history to flunk an election because he thought he was going to win it.’ ibid. Cameron
‘And now we’re landed with someone who is a joke.’ ibid. Michael Gove
He was getting so little sleep. ibid.
Combating terrorism was causing passionate disagreement within the Labour Party. ibid.
The 10p tax disaster was angering even the most loyal of the loyal. ibid.
Tonight, Gordon Brown has been facing some anguished Labour MPs. Five members of his cabinet have quit; one of them telling the prime minister he should go to. Some of his backbenchers are openly calling for his head. Dispatches with Andrew Rawnsley: Gordon Brown: Crash Gordon, Channel 4 2009
‘They had made a pact with the devil with the city of London.’ ibid. Vince Cable
The city was providing a quarter of all corporation tax. ibid.
‘No return to boom and bust.’ ibid. Brown ad nauseam
That luck was about to run out. ibid.
Gordon Brown wanted everyone to know it was not his fault. ibid.
The new business secretary was ennobled as Lord Mandelson of Hartlepool & Foy. ibid.
An eruption of sleaze. ibid.
I demand that I be allowed to let Mrs Thatcher completely off the hook. Spitting Image s3e2, Kinnock in parliament, ITV 1986
I’ve gone off the idea of red, Roy. Red’s too … red. Spitting Image s3e10, Kinnock & Hattersley in taxi
Labour: Putting People First Off. Spitting Image s3e13, Kinnock et al
A traffic cone has been elected leader of the Labour Party. Spitting Image s9e5, John Cole reporting
We need to draw a larger audience to our party political broadcasts. That’s why I’ve decided to make them a bit more like Inspector Morse. Spitting Image s10e2, Kinnock to Hattersley
I’m just going to lurk here and pull the legs off this insect in a silently sinister way … Whisper, whisper, whisper. Spitting Image s10e5, Gerald Kaufman to Jeremy Paxman
Of course I shall be the next Labour leader and wear very posh suits. Spitting Image s12e3, John Smith
I don’t believe we’ve … oh yes, it’s Neil. Neil … Kinnock, yes. Spitting Image s13e1, John Smith bumps into Kinnock in street
Ever since you’ve been captain of the bowls’ team we’ve started losing … It would help if you didn’t keep expelling our members. Spitting Image s13e2, Hattersley to Kinnock at the Old Farts Bowl Club
Well we’re sorry that nothing at all is happening in this Labour sketch. But I’m sure we’ll see them viciously attack the government and stun the nation with their brilliant radical ideas any minute now … As soon as anything happens we’ll come back to you. Spitting Image s15e3
Brown: At last we’ve got a policy. But we don’t know what it means …
Blair: It’s going backwards to go forwards to go back to a better Britain … Spitting Image s18e3
Neil Kinnock at Theatre: We’re never going on. Spitting Image Special: The Sound of Maggie, ITV 1989
Is the country ready for a prime minister with ginger pubes? Spitting Image Election Special 1992, John Cole reporting
July 2016: The Labour Party is in chaos; civil war has broken out between the new mass membership who joined up to support the veteran left winger and the party’s MPs who want him gone. At Westminster the Tories can’t believe their luck. Labour: The Summer that Changed Everything, BBC 2017
Labour seems to be running two different campaigns … I catch up with the Corbyn love bubble. ibid.
It’s easy to forget Labour have lost the election. ibid.
Momentum are asserting their influence at every level of the party. ibid.
‘I joined the Labour Party because of my Jewish values and because of the things I was taught in my synagogue. I’ve been the unfortunate victim of a lot of anti-Semitism within the Labour Party.’ Panorama: Is Labour Anti-Semitic? BBC 2019, victim
Labour says anti-racism is at its very core: why then is there a constant stream of anti-Semitism complaints by party members? ibid.
Tonight, eight former Labour insiders break their silence on Mr Corbyn’s failure to drive out anti-Semitism. ibid.
Labour’s anti-Semitism crisis burst into the open in April 2016 with a row in Westminster. ibid.