Jeremy Corbyn may have faced criticism over the number of senior women in his shadow cabinet but the Labour leader put tackling the gender pay gap at the centre of the launch of his re-election campaign today.
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A spokesman for Mr Corbyn said: “What Conor McGinn is saying is untrue”.
He said: “My worry has been we are not looking at the moment like a government in waiting, we don’t look like a credible powerful opposition and one that people can imagine running the country and I think that’s what we have got to be”.
This was also echoed by Labour MPs as Mr Corbyn embarks on a fresh leadership bid with polls predicting an easy victory over Owen Smith.
More than 80 per cent of Labour MPs oppose Mr Corbyn.
Mr Corbyn is a long-standing advocate of a united Ireland and has enjoyed close relations with Sinn Féin since the 1980s.
The row was seen as further evidence of a bullying culture presided over by the Labour leader and his supporters on the far Left.
He praised the new members who had been inspired to join the party as a result of Mr Corbyn’s leadership.
Momentum said it had cancelled the contract for the T-shirts suggesting that it may have been misled by one of its suppliers in relation to labour practices at the factory.
The Rotherham MP said his refusal to accept a motion of no confidence, backed by 172 of the party’s MPs, showed why his leadership could not continue.
Mr McDonnell had earlier defended a member of his staff who had been caught up in the row over unauthorised access to a parliamentary office used by former shadow cabinet minister Seema Malhotra.
When she quit last month, Ms Champion said she remained committed to helping victims of domestic abuse, which had been part of her portfolio.
“But I don’t know enough about the details”.
McGinn said he had been told by fellow whips that after Corbyn had been angered by an interview McGinn gave, Corbyn had proposed telephoning McGinn’s father, who is a Sinn Féin councillor, to seek his intervention. But hopefully, come the autumn, things will be resolved and we can make sure that those people who depend on us to support them in their lives get the support they need.
The university’s Labour History Research Unit asked 350 councillors in the 125 seats most narrowly won and lost by Labour at the 2015 general election.
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Despite their preference for Mr Smith, most of the councillors (38%) believed the majority of local members will vote for Mr Corbyn, compared to 28% for Mr Smith, and 53% thought the majority of locally registered supporters would back the incumbent over 10% for Mr Smith.
