An interesting story reaches me about one of the candidates for the Labour leadership from a party insider.
Not so many years ago the aforementioned candidate was at a celebration party organised by a centre left leaning think tank when he accidentally caught fire off a candle. For a few seconds the poor man (well it wasn’t Diana Abbot, I can tell you) looked like “a chicken on fire, all puffed up and seemingly nowhere to go” my informant tells me.
With the help of nearby comrades, the fire was snuffed out, and the panic temporarily subsided. I say temporarily because the scene was not one that the future candidate wished to have broadcast more widely. So orders went out that all mobile phones were to be switched off and any photographs that might have been or were about to be taken erased.
There will be party members out there who may recognise who I am talking about and will judge for themselves whether these were the considered actions of a future party leader, and possible prime-minister. My view, for what it’s worth, is that it showed a certain propensity to panic under pressure but not of a kind that could not be set right with a bit of central control. Another view is that the scene was redolent with political symbolism of a different kind- a sign that this was the man destined to set Labour on fire.
