Responding to a journalist who described him as normal, Mr Smith took the phrase a compliment, and replied: “I am normal”. I am normal. I grew up in a normal household. “But I think the PLP has got to be a grown-up organisation and come to a decision in the next couple of days as to who it is”. My wife is a primary school teacher.
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At least two Labour MPs will challenge Corbyn in a contest that formally gets under way this week, after Owen Smith joined Angela Eagle in announcing a bid, with the victor expected to be named in September.
During the Conservative leadership contest, Andrea Leadsom was heavily criticised for comparing herself favourably with Theresa May because she has children and the Prime Minister is childless.
And Mr Kinnock said: “Any suggestion that we discussed political alliances or the creation of new parties is categorically wrong”.
It will go ahead on Sunday and he will say: ” It is not enough for the The Labour Party to simply talk about being anti-austerity. You find some still nervous that they will be knocked back by the forces that back Mr Corbyn.
Mr Smith says he’ll give way if Angela Eagle receives more nominations than him (which suggests he knows she won’t).
I am normal. I grew up in a normal household.
As the only hope of beating Mr Corbyn is if just one challenger stands, Smith is content for the contender with the fewest nominations to drop out.
But certainly from today’s indication I think there’s a great deal of support out there certainly.
Mr Smith believes he has the better chance to beat Mr Corbyn because he is relatively new to Parliament and did not vote in favour of the Iraq war in 2003.
“It’s really very hard and it’s distressing because for all of us who have devoted our lives to the Labour Party and been members a long time the sort of abuse that is being directed at ordinary Labour Party members, whatever the idea was behind a kinder gentler politics it is not what we have seen”.
Asked if the party should pick based on who had more nominations, Smith said: “That’s one way in which we could do it, or we could make an agreement between ourselves”. Now if it’s next month I think it will be very hard for the Labour Party.
“Jeremy is a good and decent man but he is not a good leader”.
However, sources close to Eagle immediately dismissed that suggestion, pointed out that the candidate who won the fewest nominations became leader past year and that she was “in it to win it”.
Also writing in the Observer, Eagle, whose constituency office windows were smashed by a brick last week, turns on Corbyn, claiming that by settling into “a sectarian comfort zone”, he had provoked “personal attacks on MPs, [and] a string of death and rape threats and bricks through windows”.
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One of her supporters, Aberavon MP Stephen Kinnock, told Sky News there were “many lumps in throats” as she shared her personal story, and said she was clearly a “seasoned campaigner”.
