Mail on Sunday columnist Dan Hodges has again lashed out at toxic culture in the Labour Party and the left in general. Hodges was speaking to Mike Graham of TalkRadio, following on from his article last Sunday that called for an end to Labour's 'visceral hatred of the Tories'. That article sparked outrage on the left, many of whom responded by pointing to a column Hodges wrote in 2016 which featured a graphic of Jeremy Corbyn and the headline: 'Labour MUST kill vampire Corbyn'.
The Mail has now retroactively edited the article online so that it now reads: 'Labour MUST dump vampire Jezza'. Sneaky!
One of those bemoaning Hodges' past rhetoric was Corbyn's son Tommy, who tweeted Hodges' original headline and linked it with the Finsbury Park van attack of 2017, saying that his father wouldn't be alive if the attacker had been successful. "Dan Hodges has some nerve lecturing the left on hate speech" Corbyn added.
There is no clearly no love lost between Hodges and the far left. Hodges is the son of former Labour MP Glenda Jackson and was himself a party member until 2013 when he resigned in protest at Ed Miliband's stance on British military intervention in Syria. Miliband had opposed such a move, quite rightly (and astutely, given Labour's recent history of military interventions). Hodges rejoined the party briefly in 2015 in order to back Yvette Cooper for the leadership and block Corbyn. Having failed in that aim, Hodges later resigned a second time.
In his TalkRadio appearance Hodges repeated his condemnation of Corbyn's call for solidarity with Claudia Webbe - three weeks before Webbe was convicted of harassment. Corbyn had asked audience members at a fringe meeting at the Labour conference: "Can we just have a thought tonight in absolute solidarity with our great friend Claudia Webbe for what she’s going through?"
Hodges also called out Angela Rayner's 'scum' remarks, suggesting that it would be absurd if a member of the opposite benches walked around their own party conference referring to Labour MPs in such a way. He pointed out another discrepancy between the two parties, in that Labour delegates are not advised to remove their badges upon leaving the venue - unlike Tories. Indeed, there were no reports of Labour delegates being abused in the street during their conference and certainly no massed hordes of protesters or offensive banners. Hodges certainly has a point.
Click below for a clip of Hodge and Graham in conversation.
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