Political

Emily Thornberry quits Labour Shadow Cabinet over tweet

The BBC reports news of one of Islington’s MPs:

Labour’s Emily Thornberry has resigned from the shadow cabinet over a tweet she sent during the Rochester and Strood by-election campaign.

As for what the problem with the tweet was:

Amazing what a single image can say. Pity, or awe, or horror. Or stupendous, crass, insensitivity. Like being the representative of a party whose survival depends on persuading ordinary people that they are on their side and then – on polling day in the Rochester byelection, where by this time tomorrow voters will probably have delivered a second Westminster seat to Ukip – tweeting a picture of a white van parked outside a modern terrace with the crosses of St George festooned over the front…

One click, just one click, that’s all it takes. Ed Miliband’s Labour is once again the party of the metropolitan elite. [Anne Perkins]

Sun front page on Emily Thornberry's tweet

Flags are often highly sensitive political symbols and you don’t have to have exactly the snazziest political radar to spot that it’s wise to think again rather than tweet when such symbols are involved. Though it’s certainly fair to point out that other politicians have done rather worse things in the past and stayed in their post. As Ian Dunt points out:


UPDATE: Oh look, what’s just round the corner from Emily Thornberry’s Islington office?


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