A quote that is often attributed to former UK Prime Minister Harold Wilson is that ‘a week is a long time in politics’. This phrase refers to how politics can change rapidly, sometimes more rapidly than the politicians involved in a particular situation may expect. In politics one minute things could be fine for a politician or a party but the next minute there could be crisis and chaos.
It’s pretty clear to me that Labour have had a hell of a week. I don’t recall a week of so many scandals, big and small to afflict a party since the days of John Major and the seediness, petty or otherwise, of the darkest and dying days of a Tory government that had been in power since 1979. However with Major’s Tories it took 18 years for the Government to implode in scandal and for public disillusionment with that government to set in. With Labour it’s less than two years before we’ve had the sight of multiple scandals, some very much greater in severity than some of the seedy sex scandals involving adultery or the alleged petty corruption of the ‘cash for questions’ affair. As Dan Hodges points out Labour are mired in some serious scandals and many of them have blown up in the space of a week. The list of scandals afflicting Labour listed by Mr Hodges is just monstrous and cover stuff like the long term scar of the Islamic Rape Gangs and Labour’s botched inquiry into them and serious national security scandals such as the Chinese mega-Embassy and the China spy affair.
Mr Hodges said on X
This week the Government's failure to find a solution to the Maccabi ban was then overshadowed by the revelation a small boat migrant had returned after less than a month, which in turn was overshadowed by the collapse of the rape gang inquiry, which in turn was overshadowed by Labour's collapse in Wales, which in turn was overshadowed by the conclusive proof Starmer lied over China, which in turn has been overshadowed by the revelation the Epping sex offender is on the loose. One week. One. Week.
https://x.com/DPJHodges/status/1981761305015910871
Mr Hodges may be someone I don’t often agree with, but he’s bang on correct here. This is the sort of high number of scandals that in previous scandal hit governments would have emerged over weeks or even months. With Labour a whole load of scandals have come out in just one week. These scandals are just the ones that we know about and which have been reported, how many other toxic Labour scandals are waiting in the wings to vomit out into the public’s consciousness? I certainly would not bet any serious money of this scandal laden week for Labour not being repeated very soon.