PHIL MAXWELL

Today’s blog is written by political satirist Owen Smith Junior – currently on a zero-hours contract.

One of my political heroes is Margaret Hodge MP. She is never afraid to stand up to bullying and always speaks her mind. Margaret, who helped launch the leadership challenge against Corbyn by bringing forward a vote of no confidence, said the team at the top of Labour had to step in to stop MPs being “intimidated, bullied, harassed”. “If this is the new kind of politics it is a dirty politics that I want no part of,” Margaret told the Today programme. “Bricks being thrown through windows, people being called ‘scum’, people being insulted, people being bullied, people being intimidated”.

Bearing in mind her vision and insight I decided to take my camera along to a Momentum rally in Liverpool last Thursday. Before I went I made sure I topped up my health insurance.

Members of the Momentum cult get ready for the meeting

The Momentum meeting was held at the Liner hotel which offers “one of the largest event spaces in the City Centre”. Momentum estimated there were at least 50,000 people at the rally (typical of the lies peddled by the extreme left) but, as the ‘Brittanic Suite’ seats only 600 people, there could only have been around 750 people as there was also a lot of people standing up.

Liverpool Socialist Singers

The meeting was kicked off by the so called ‘Liverpool Socialist Singers’.  Listening to them I thought to myself how wonderful the music of Cliff Richard was compared to their boring songs about peace, Trade Unions and workers rights.

Tim Hayden addressing the meeting

Following the ‘Socialist singers’ the Chair of the meeting former teacher Tim Hayden spoke. Listening to him I thought about how many young impressionable minds he must have warped during his long undistinguished career in different classrooms around Liverpool. ‘Red Tim’ boomed into the microphone and to rapturous applause announced that Tony Blair had declared his support for Owen Smith MP. I like Tony Blair even more than Margaret Hodge! I think it is despicable the way he is criticised by extremists in the Labour Party. Yes, he did lie to parliament on at least four separate occasions but, like many of those MP’s who voted to go to war in Iraq, I fundamentally believe that Tony is a decent man who helped the country forge even closer links with George Bush and the American arms industry. I think the grovelling private memos he wrote to George Bush are inspirational; Sir John Chilcot said the 2003 invasion was not the “last resort” action presented to MPs and the public. There was no “imminent threat” from Saddam – and the intelligence case was “not justified” For me this is clear evidence that traitor Chilcott is a Trotskyist.

Councillor Alice Bennett addressing the meeting

Councillor Alice Bennet banged on about how shocking it was that people now had to pay £25 to register to vote in the leadership election. She said this was “designed to disenfranchise the poor and low paid”. It is precisely because thousands of poor and low paid people paid £3 and voted for Jeremy Corbyn, that the Labour Party is now in such a mess!

Dr Alex Scott-Samuel addresses the meeting

Dr Alex Scott Samuel droned on about how privatisation was destroying the NHS. He criticised the record of Owen Smith and talked about Owen’s career history working for major international pharmaceutical companies. Personally I will be voting for Owen. His lucrative highly paid jobs working for multinational drug companies equip him for the role of Prime minister. Yes he’s had a couple of low points in his career but you can’t blame him for the $762 million fine Amgen got for illegally promoting the drug ‘Aranesp’ to cancer patients in a way that increased the likelihood of their deaths. Yes prosecutors said that the company was “pursuing profits at the risk of patient safety” as it promoted a non-approved use of Aranesp. Still you can’t blame Owen because he was only in charge of corporate affairs, corporate and internal communications and public affairs at the British division of Amgen while the biotech company was being investigated in 2008. Owen has gone on record with great ideas about improving the NHS. He has no problem with the involvement of private companies in delivering NHS services and welcomes them, “Where they can bring good ideas, where they can bring valuable services that the NHS is not able to deliver”.

Unfortunately Tony Blair wasn’t at the meeting

Owen has gone on record reflecting many of the ideas of my hero Tony Blair; On PFI (Private Finance Initiative) schemes, Owen said “We’ve had PFI in Wales, we’ve had a hospital built down in Baglan through PFI. If PFI works, then let’s do it.” Again Owen has shown vision when talking about education: “City academies in certain parts of inner city Britain, where schools were failing, where children were not being well served, have made great inroads”.

Owen Smith has great plans for the NHS

Another of my political heroes is Hilary Benn. Thankfully he hasn’t inherited the dreadful political genes of his father. Now that he writes for THE SUN he has really gone up in my estimation. Hopefully, like Tony Blair, he will now become a close personal friend of Rupert Murdoch (another one of my heroes). Writing in the Sun recently in support of Angela Eagle he said “just look at what she’s had to deal with in the last few days. A tide of abuse, much of it homophobic and misoginistic. A brick through her office window the day after she announced her candidacy. Death threats”. Ok it’s since emerged that no brick was thrown through her window and the leading LGBT publication ‘Pink News’ investigated the homophobic claims and found they were unfounded. However I agree with Hilary Benn (again writing in THE SUN) when he said that Angela ‘has that elusive and essential personal quality; courage”. Yes Hillary because it took courage to vote for the war in Iraq and courage to vote to bomb Syria.

Members of the Merseyside Pensioners Association

Marie Harrison addressing the meeting on behalf of the Merseyside Pensioners Association

Ross Quinn, UNITE shop steward

Elizabeth Hayden Chair of Momentum Merseyside Youth

Trade Unionist Roston Bentham

Councillor Peter Mitchell

Health campaigner Felicity Dowling

Audience members at the meeting

Audience members at the meeting

Audience members at the meeting

Audience members at the meeting

Phil Maxwell is away (with the fairies)