“It should be up to this Parliament and this country – not Jean-Claude Juncker – to decide if too many people are coming here”, he said. There’s a difference between being a party of protest and a party of government. “We are astonished by the irresponsible rhetoric and pandering to anti-immigration sentiment”, the business lobby group’s director general, Simon Walker, said in an e-mailed statement. “The only reason they are attacking us is because they’re scared of us”.
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But Mr Corbyn was defended by his closest ally, shadow chancellor John McDonnell, who told Sky News community groups and trade unions had organised a whole week of activities contrasting what was happening at the Tory conference with what was happening in people’s communities.
“Then I think we owe it to Canada to support the candidate that can best defeat the NDP in a riding where the Tories are not a factor”. Derby North Labour Party has already produced a new banner with a picture of Jeremy Corbyn. “Particularly ball games because they managed to miss me with every single projectile that they threw”.
And with the newly-born Mr Corbyn defying his own advice to Labour and appearing on the Conservative conference patch this week – you couldn’t find the centre of Manchester that night – there was plenty of cheering before his disciples popped down the road to jeer at the other side.
Conservatives attending the conference were advised not to display their accreditation outside the secure area around the venue.
The health secretary was protected by a cordon of police officers.
Most people on the protests who the Salford Star spoke to were furious that the Tories had dared to come to Manchester, one of the cities most hard hit by Government attacks on people who have the least.
The movement inspired by Jeremy Corbyn is still a minority and the Conservatives still lead in the polls.
Yesterday’s demonstration saw thousands of people march through the city to Manchester Central, where the conference was taking place, protesting against austerity, NHS reforms and cuts to spending and benefits.
Veteran former politician and Conservative Party member, Edwina Currie, said the tone of the conference was surprising.
Johnson is expected to tell the conference in Manchester on Tuesday: “I know these people, my friends”.
As for McCluskey’s stated opposition to the rest of the bill, this should be treated with contempt. The unions accepted the first raft of anti-trade union laws brought in by the Conservative Thatcher government in the early 1980s. One mischievous conference go-er made a cheeky joke about flying pigs before stepping up to try his hand with the mock-rifle.
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“One Nation Conservatism has always sought to represent everybody but I am not sure it’s doing a very good job of talking to that section of society right now”. They were people who believe “who thought a retweeted hashtag was a democratic mandate, who believed that Russell Brand, Jeremy Hardy and Charlotte Church were the voices of the silent majority”, he said, adding: “They were proved totally, completely, tragically – and yet marvellously and hilariously – wrong”.
