Chris Moncrieff: Labour's sense of doom as local elections loom

It has become the norm on these occasions in the past that the party in Government at Westminster always fares badly, while the Opposition picks up seats right across the map.

But all that could well go by the board this time, with politics in Britain in
such a crazy, topsy-turvy state. The Labour Party is in such a shambles that they could be losing seats on May 4 left, right and centre rather than winning ground.

Even the party leadership appears to be locked in its own private civil war.

The leader Jeremy Corbyn does his best, although not usually very effectively, at Prime Minister’s Questions in the Commons, but he is not helped by the majority of the Parliamentary Labour Party who do not like him as leader and who, pitifully, offer him little or no vocal encouragement.

The elections are taking place in England, Scotland and Wales with 4,851 council seats up for grabs. The contests for six new metro mayors in England are also being held on that day, as is the by-election in the Labour-held seat of Manchester Gorton arising from the death of Sir Gerald Kaufman.

Labour’s morale – if such a thing still exists – has also been done no favours by the latest opinion poll which shows that Theresa May is leading Mr Corbyn by a massive 37 points. This lead outstrips the 16-point lead Margaret Thatcher had over Michael Foot at the 1983 general election in which she won a 100-seat Commons majority.

Political parties often scoff at opinion poll findings, saying that what really matters is the poll on the day. If they are so scornful, why do they hold so many private opinion polls which they do not publicise?

Labour need to brace themselves for possible trouble ahead.

WE are constantly being told the fabric of the Palace of Westminster is in dire straits and that the job to save this building will be massive, running into billions of pounds. It will not be resolved by a few bits of sticking plaster.

This means – although some people question this – that everyone will have to be taken out of the Palace for a few years to make it possible for the construction workers to get on with their task unhindered.

And moving some 2,000 people, plus all the goods and chattels, into temporary accommodation will be a mammoth task.

As I say, we are hearing all this alarmist talk. Yet, what is being done? On the face of it, very little.

They had better get a move on, otherwise MPs will one day return from their holidays to find the place no more than a massive mountain of rubble.

I SEE the Queen has been more successful in feeding a banana to an elephant than was the late Denis Thatcher, husband of the former Prime Minister, when he tried to do the same thing in Sri Lanka.

I watched fascinated as Denis attempted to insert his bunch of bananas in the wrong orifice of the perplexed Jumbo.

I SHALL not readily forget an Easter Day a few years ago involving the then Prime Minister James Callaghan. He was known as “Sunny Jim” but was more often thunderous than sunny.

On this bright Easter Day morning we were “camped out” outside Number 10, waiting for Callaghan. One of the television companies had laid a cable right across the front door, to halt the PM in his tracks so they could get better pictures.

Callaghan, all smiles, emerged. “Happy Easter, everyone,” he said. Then he produced some fearsome looking shears from behind his back, adding: “If you don’t move that bloody cable, I will slice it in two.” I have never seen a TV crew move faster in their haste to oblige.

I REACLL another Easter occasion when I attended a lunch at which that great trencherman Roy (now Lord) Hattersley, then deputy leader of the Labour Party, was guest of honour.

He was asked what his ambitions were. He replied: “I have two great ambitions: to be Home Secretary and to open the batting for Yorkshire.”

A voice piped up from the back of the room: “Better get your pads on then...”

Inexplicably, Hattersley was the only person in the room who did not find this amusing.

Chris Moncrieff is a former political editor of the Press Association.