Douglas Adams wrote of the ultimate cloaking device, Somebody Else’s Problem Field. I give you in Corbyn’s own words, “I find if you’re in an office, the crisis finds you. If you’re not in the office, the crisis finds somebody else.”

“I find if you are in an office, the crisis finds you. If you’re not in the office, the crisis finds somebody else.”

Corbyn had, before becoming leader, power without responsibility and now he has both.  Does the way in which he is handling his new responsibilities explain his failure to be a fully rounded, effective leader of a political party?

“Our problem is simply the capacity to respond to everything. After only two or three weeks in office we discovered we had a backlog of a hundred thousand emails sent to me. We had a backlog of a thousand invitations to speak at places all over the country, and all over the world for that matter. We started from scratch with our office, so just the sheer management of issues off this is huge. It’s now much better, it’s getting better. We’ve got more staff in place, a better team in place, it’s growing but it is quite difficult.

Also I’m quite concerned that if I spend time in the office someone will always find something for you to do. There’s always a crisis that needs your urgent attention. If I wasn’t there, either the crisis wouldn’t happen or it wouldn’t need your urgent attention. But the fact I’m there means that it becomes my problem, not somebody else’s. So I’m quite assertive about the need to ensure I go travelling round the country. I’m doing basically three days travelling every week. So we’re going everywhere. I did over a hundred events during the leadership campaign and by the end of the year I will probably have done 400 to 500 public meetings.”

“I feel constantly concerned that I’m spending all this time doing everything involved in all my leadership activity and sometimes I feel a tear between that and my responsibilities to the community that I represent. So I have a weekly fight over the schedule set out in my diary. That’s where I do get quite assertive, because I insist on spending time with those people and groups I always have represented even while now also travelling across the country – and also I make sure that I have time for myself. Half a day, or a day a week, so I can dig my allotment.”

‘What we’ve achieved so far’: an interview with Jeremy Corbyn

“Corbyn’s team prepare for PMQs over Monday and Tuesday, with Wednesday morning the key prep session.”

How Jeremy Corbyn is preparing for PMQs

“He keeps his feet on the ground by visiting not just his own constituency, but also by getting out of London altogether. Corbyn has built into his new routine a strict edict that nearly every week he only spends three and a half days at Westminster and that the rest of the time he’s out on the road, away from the Parliamentary bubble.

“There is a sort of relentless demand on one, so every week Prime Minister’s Question Time comes round, every week there’s a whole lot of things that have to be done.

And it’s balancing that with the need to not spend one’s whole time in one’s office, dealing with whatever crisis appears. I find if you are in an office, the crisis finds you. If you’re not in the office, the crisis finds somebody else.

And so I’m very insistent on doing my constituency work and constituency surgery. I had to cancel two interviews yesterday because so many people came. I was there for five hours [which is two and a half hours longer than he’d put in his diary].” ”

Jeremy Corbyn Interview: On His First 100 Days

When does Corbyn find the time to deal with matters such as the charges of anti-semitism?  Or, are such matters crises that are best left to somebody else?  And, if so, who is dealing with them?

Power, like nature, abhors a vacuum.  Who, then, is the Sergeant Towser, exercising power in the Labour leader’s office whilst Corbyn is perfecting his portrayal of Major Major for an upcoming remake of Catch 22?

Seumas Milne?

Seumas Milne expected Guardian to endorse Jeremy Corbyn and felt “very let down”

I wanted to believe in Jeremy Corbyn. But I can’t believe in Seumas Milne

Has Jeremy Corbyn’s spin doctor, Seumas Milne gone rogue?

Seumas Milne will finish Labour off

The Thin Controller

Thursday 26th May Update: Corbyn Decides to be Own Chief of Staff

In an email to staff, Fletcher said: “this is ‘flat’ structure in which there is no Chief of Staff but instead a senior team that reports in to Jeremy.  Thanks all very much for all your work for Jeremy and the Labour party. The changes we are making should have a further positive impact on our ability to work as an effective, well-organised unit that develops a stronger policy and campaigning edge.”

Jeremy Corbyn Calls In Ex-Civil Service Chief As He Overhauls Labour Leader’s Office

Corbyn orders review to ready Labour for potential snap election

Tuesday 5th July Update:

Life inside Jeremy Corbyn’s “paranoid” HQ laid bare as Labour staffers blow the lid on leader’s top team

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Say hello to Jeremy Corbyn, Labour Party leader, management guru, author of The Slacker’s Guide to Management … “I find if you’re in an office, the crisis finds you. If you’re not in the office, the crisis finds somebody else.”

“I find if you are in an office, the crisis finds you. If you’re not in the office, the crisis finds somebody else.”

Corbyn had, before becoming leader, power without responsibility and now he has both.  Does the way in which he is handling his new responsibilities explain his failure to be a fully rounded, effective leader of a political party?

“Our problem is simply the capacity to respond to everything. After only two or three weeks in office we discovered we had a backlog of a hundred thousand emails sent to me. We had a backlog of a thousand invitations to speak at places all over the country, and all over the world for that matter. We started from scratch with our office, so just the sheer management of issues off this is huge. It’s now much better, it’s getting better. We’ve got more staff in place, a better team in place, it’s growing but it is quite difficult.

Also I’m quite concerned that if I spend time in the office someone will always find something for you to do. There’s always a crisis that needs your urgent attention. If I wasn’t there, either the crisis wouldn’t happen or it wouldn’t need your urgent attention. But the fact I’m there means that it becomes my problem, not somebody else’s. So I’m quite assertive about the need to ensure I go travelling round the country. I’m doing basically three days travelling every week. So we’re going everywhere. I did over a hundred events during the leadership campaign and by the end of the year I will probably have done 400 to 500 public meetings.”

“I feel constantly concerned that I’m spending all this time doing everything involved in all my leadership activity and sometimes I feel a tear between that and my responsibilities to the community that I represent. So I have a weekly fight over the schedule set out in my diary. That’s where I do get quite assertive, because I insist on spending time with those people and groups I always have represented even while now also travelling across the country – and also I make sure that I have time for myself. Half a day, or a day a week, so I can dig my allotment.”

‘What we’ve achieved so far’: an interview with Jeremy Corbyn

“Corbyn’s team prepare for PMQs over Monday and Tuesday, with Wednesday morning the key prep session.”

How Jeremy Corbyn is preparing for PMQs

“He keeps his feet on the ground by visiting not just his own constituency, but also by getting out of London altogether. Corbyn has built into his new routine a strict edict that nearly every week he only spends three and a half days at Westminster and that the rest of the time he’s out on the road, away from the Parliamentary bubble.

“There is a sort of relentless demand on one, so every week Prime Minister’s Question Time comes round, every week there’s a whole lot of things that have to be done.

And it’s balancing that with the need to not spend one’s whole time in one’s office, dealing with whatever crisis appears. I find if you are in an office, the crisis finds you. If you’re not in the office, the crisis finds somebody else.

And so I’m very insistent on doing my constituency work and constituency surgery. I had to cancel two interviews yesterday because so many people came. I was there for five hours [which is two and a half hours longer than he’d put in his diary].” ”

Jeremy Corbyn Interview: On His First 100 Days

When does Corbyn find the time to deal with matters such as the charges of anti-semitism?  Or, are such matters crises that are best left to somebody else?  And, if so, who is dealing with them?

Power, like nature, abhors a vacuum.  Who, then, is the Sergeant Towser, exercising power in the Labour leader’s office whilst Corbyn is perfecting his portrayal of Major Major for an upcoming remake of Catch 22?

Seumas Milne?

Seumas Milne expected Guardian to endorse Jeremy Corbyn and felt “very let down”

I wanted to believe in Jeremy Corbyn. But I can’t believe in Seumas Milne

Has Jeremy Corbyn’s spin doctor, Seumas Milne gone rogue?

Seumas Milne will finish Labour off

The Thin Controller

Thursday 26th May Update: Corbyn Decides to be Own Chief of Staff

In an email to staff, Fletcher said: “this is ‘flat’ structure in which there is no Chief of Staff but instead a senior team that reports in to Jeremy.  Thanks all very much for all your work for Jeremy and the Labour party. The changes we are making should have a further positive impact on our ability to work as an effective, well-organised unit that develops a stronger policy and campaigning edge.”

Jeremy Corbyn Calls In Ex-Civil Service Chief As He Overhauls Labour Leader’s Office

Corbyn orders review to ready Labour for potential snap election

Tuesday 5th July Update:

Life inside Jeremy Corbyn’s “paranoid” HQ laid bare as Labour staffers blow the lid on leader’s top team

Forget Mondeo Man! #Labour under #Corbyn wooed & won London Porsche Man! #JC4PM Peoples Leader?

Corbyn is the Peoples Leader, if you happen to be earning above £27k per annum

Not even New Labour won and kept the support of the likes of Porsche Man, for long …

Truly Corbyn is the Peoples Leader, if you happen to be one of the people earning above the national average income of £27,000 per annum.  40% of income earners are on £27,000 per year and above:

 

Before we have free school meals for everyone, let’s prove it works

Labour must return to first principles on child poverty

Labour manifesto ‘would keep £7bn of planned Tory welfare cuts’

Labour’s scrapping of tuition fees isn’t the progressive measure it appears

Sure Start worked. So why is Theresa May out to kill it and Corbyn under fund it?

More than 350 Sure Start children’s centres have closed since 2010, says Major Dan Jarvis MP

Forget Worcester Woman! #Labour under #Corbyn wooed & won London Porsche Man! #JC4PM Peoples Leader?

Corbyn is the Peoples Leader, if you happen to be earning above £27k per annum

Not even New Labour won and kept the support of the likes of Porsche Man, for long …

Truly Corbyn is the Peoples Leader, if you happen to be one of the people earning above the national average income of £27,000 per annum.  40% of income earners are on £27,000 per year and above:

 

Before we have free school meals for everyone, let’s prove it works

Labour must return to first principles on child poverty

Labour manifesto ‘would keep £7bn of planned Tory welfare cuts’

Labour’s scrapping of tuition fees isn’t the progressive measure it appears

Sure Start worked. So why is Theresa May out to kill it and Corbyn under fund it?

More than 350 Sure Start children’s centres have closed since 2010, says Major Dan Jarvis MP

Were the voters of Canterbury inspired by #Corbyn to vote #Labour or did they vote with their wallets?

Were the voters of Canterbury inspired by Corbyn to vote Labour or did they vote with their wallets?

Indeed John Hodgson, because the ‘principled, dispossessed’ affluent youth (and their parents and grandparents) of Glastonbury, whom Corbyn urged to arise, returned to council and social housing on the day after the Festival ended.

Labour under Corbyn did not go into the General Election committed to reversing all of the £9bn of Tory Social Security cuts over which IDS resigned. Labour only committed to reverse £2bn, leaving in place the benefits freeze and benefits cap. When questioned about this matter, during the General Election campaign by a journalist, Corbyn said the journalist was wrong, then an aide tapped him on the shoulder to explain that the journalist was right. But there was more, Labour would hold a review of the cuts.

Sorry, the man dispensing hope to and earning the trust of millions (copyright, the white middle class) was happy with a review to determine whether or not the benefits of the poorest in our society should be unfrozen? Corbyn then went on to tell the journalist that he was committed to commenting on the perversity of the benefit cap.

Somehow, I do not imagine Corbyn mentioned that, when he displayed he is the only politician with a heart, by hugging a Grenfell resident, just a few weeks later. Corbyn may have a heart, but does he have a brain?

Labour’s Manifesto spread tens of billions of pounds of taxpayers’ pearls before the middle class and they could not wait to gobble them up. In the process, Labour made liars of many of us who campaigned for it up to polling day. We told our core vote they would be better off under a Labour Government when the truth was quite the opposite. Yes, marginally better off than under a Tory Government, but much worse off than under a Liberal Democrat Government.

And, it is not just the matter of tax and benefit where Labour turned on its own, but in areas like Sure Start. Corbyn was happy for Labour to make an open ended commitment to free university tuition, in excess of £10bn, but felt that he could only pledge at most £500m that would not even fully reverse the savage Tory cuts in Sure Start since 2010.

Giving those who currently pay for childcare under 5, free childcare not only widens the income gap between them and parents currently receiving it for free, but it also widens the social inequality gap. If I have no option to pay for childcare now then giving it to me free is the equivalent of a tax rebate. Thus giving me more money to spend on my child(ren) in that crucial period between 0 and 5 where the future of most are determined for the rest of their lives.  In the same way providing my child with a free school meal, when I have to pay for it now, yields me a monetary return.

One might almost think that those behind Labour’s Manifesto were looking at ways to keep Labour’s core vote penned in on the reservation. After all, if more of them get on then there will be greater competition for university places and subsequent jobs. There is, clearly, only so far that the white, middle and upper class males around Corbyn are willing to go in their assault on their Establishment, of which most of them just happen to be members themselves.

Labour’s success in the Canterbury Constituency underlines my point. Labour won the seat with just under two hundred votes, but only six weeks after Labour’s vote across Kent had collapsed in the County Council elections. Are we to believe, as some would have us believe, that between those elections, but before the launch of Labour’s General Election Manifesto, thousands of people in an affluent constituency like Canterbury found their inner Socialist without any thought of personal gain?

There are 8,800 students in the Canterbury Constituency; 32,900 of those in work there, 68.5% of the total, are employed as managers, directors and senior officials and in professional, associate professional and technical occupations; many are long distance rail commuters to London; 37,300 there hold an NVQ4 equivalent and above, 53.2% of the constituency’s resident population, aged 16-64; and Whitstable, the town on the constituency’s stretch of the North Kent coast, has been known as Islington on Sea for two decades now.

Surely Canterbury would be a barren land for a Labour Party, led, allegedly, by its most Socialist leader in decades, reaching out to the disadvantaged, the left behind and disconnected? Labour has never won the seat before, not even in 1997, when we last had our highest share of C2DE votes in many years, and the Liberals have never won it either, not even in 1906. But then neither party has ever made such a blatant pitch for the middle class vote as Labour has done under Corbyn, who, himself was born into an affluent, white middle class family. Clearly that is why he best understands the pain of the 40% who go to university at 18 and rarely seems to remember the majority, who do not.

Labour endeavoured to mimic the SNP route to power at this General Election, but the proportion of the electorate in Scotland that is middle and upper class is greater than across Great Britain. SNP has been able to win power there, at Holyrood, without any great increase in C2DE votes. Middle class got to vote SNP for Holyrood on a platform against Trident, over which the Scottish Parliament has no say; for free university tuition, that has now seen a significant reduction in those from low income backgrounds becoming undergraduates and, in theory, for reform of local taxation. SNP were very much in favour of replacing the Council Tax, in opposition, but despite having had powers to do so since 2012, they have not. Their core vote would see their taxes rise as some on low incomes were taken out of taxation completely.

In conclusion, Corbyn signed off on a Manifesto that he clearly had not read, on a topic he claims to be closest to his heart and that would adversely affect the lives of the likes of lone parents, yet we are assured by people who have never had jobs in government and never seemingly taken much interest in how most people live in this country, that he, flanked by John McDonnell and Seumas Milne is fit to be the next Labour Prime Minister (and not just for the class into which he was born).

#Corbyn may #Labour, just may, have a heart, but has #JC4PM got a brain?

Corbyn may Labour, just may, have a heart, but has he got a brain?

Indeed John Hodgson, because the ‘principled, dispossessed’ affluent youth (and their parents and grandparents) of Glastonbury, whom Corbyn urged to arise, returned to council and social housing on the day after the Festival ended.

Labour under Corbyn did not go into the General Election committed to reversing all of the £9bn of Tory Social Security cuts over which IDS resigned. Labour only committed to reverse £2bn, leaving in place the benefits freeze and benefits cap. When questioned about this matter, during the General Election campaign by a journalist, Corbyn said the journalist was wrong, then an aide tapped him on the shoulder to explain that the journalist was right. But there was more, Labour would hold a review of the cuts.

Sorry, the man dispensing hope to and earning the trust of millions (copyright, the white middle class) was happy with a review to determine whether or not the benefits of the poorest in our society should be unfrozen? Corbyn then went on to tell the journalist that he was committed to commenting on the perversity of the benefit cap.

Somehow, I do not imagine Corbyn mentioned that, when he displayed he is the only politician with a heart, by hugging a Grenfell resident, just a few weeks later. Corbyn may have a heart, but does he have a brain?

Labour’s Manifesto spread tens of billions of pounds of taxpayers’ pearls before the middle class and they could not wait to gobble them up. In the process, Labour made liars of many of us who campaigned for it up to polling day. We told our core vote they would be better off under a Labour Government when the truth was quite the opposite. Yes, marginally better off than under a Tory Government, but much worse off than under a Liberal Democrat Government.

And, it is not just the matter of tax and benefit where Labour turned on its own, but in areas like Sure Start. Corbyn was happy for Labour to make an open ended commitment to free university tuition, in excess of £10bn, but felt that he could only pledge at most £500m that would not even fully reverse the savage Tory cuts in Sure Start since 2010.

Giving those who currently pay for childcare under 5, free childcare not only widens the income gap between them and parents currently receiving it for free, but it also widens the social inequality gap. If I have no option to pay for childcare now then giving it to me free is the equivalent of a tax rebate. Thus giving me more money to spend on my child(ren) in that crucial period between 0 and 5 where the future of most are determined for the rest of their lives.  In the same way providing my child with a free school meal, when I have to pay for it now, yields me a monetary return.

One might almost think that those behind Labour’s Manifesto were looking at ways to keep Labour’s core vote penned in on the reservation. After all, if more of them get on then there will be greater competition for university places and subsequent jobs. There is, clearly, only so far that the white, middle and upper class males around Corbyn are willing to go in their assault on their Establishment, of which most of them just happen to be members themselves.

Labour’s success in the Canterbury Constituency underlines my point. Labour won the seat with just under two hundred votes, but only six weeks after Labour’s vote across Kent had collapsed in the County Council elections. Are we to believe, as some would have us believe, that between those elections, but before the launch of Labour’s General Election Manifesto, thousands of people in an affluent constituency like Canterbury found their inner Socialist without any thought of personal gain?

There are 8,800 students in the Canterbury Constituency; 32,900 of those in work there, 68.5% of the total, are employed as managers, directors and senior officials and in professional, associate professional and technical occupations; many are long distance rail commuters to London; 37,300 there hold an NVQ4 equivalent and above, 53.2% of the constituency’s resident population, aged 16-64; and Whitstable, the town on the constituency’s stretch of the North Kent coast, has been known as Islington on Sea for two decades now.

Surely Canterbury would be a barren land for a Labour Party, led, allegedly, by its most Socialist leader in decades, reaching out to the disadvantaged, the left behind and disconnected? Labour has never won the seat before, not even in 1997, when we last had our highest share of C2DE votes in many years, and the Liberals have never won it either, not even in 1906. But then neither party has ever made such a blatant pitch for the middle class vote as Labour has done under Corbyn, who, himself was born into an affluent, white middle class family. Clearly that is why he best understands the pain of the 40% who go to university at 18 and rarely seems to remember the majority, who do not.

Labour endeavoured to mimic the SNP route to power at this General Election, but the proportion of the electorate in Scotland that is middle and upper class is greater than across Great Britain. SNP has been able to win power there, at Holyrood, without any great increase in C2DE votes. Middle class got to vote SNP for Holyrood on a platform against Trident, over which the Scottish Parliament has no say; for free university tuition, that has now seen a significant reduction in those from low income backgrounds becoming undergraduates and, in theory, for reform of local taxation. SNP were very much in favour of replacing the Council Tax, in opposition, but despite having had powers to do so since 2012, they have not. Their core vote would see their taxes rise as some on low incomes were taken out of taxation completely.

In conclusion, Corbyn signed off on a Manifesto that he clearly had not read, on a topic he claims to be closest to his heart and that would adversely affect the lives of the likes of lone parents, yet we are assured by people who have never had jobs in government and never seemingly taken much interest in how most people live in this country, that he, flanked by John McDonnell and Seumas Milne is fit to be the next Labour Prime Minister (and not just for the class into which he was born).

Say hello to Jeremy #Corbyn, #Labour Party leader, management guru & author of the Slacker’s Guide to Management … “I find if you are in an office, the crisis finds you. If you’re not in the office, the crisis finds somebody else.”

“I find if you are in an office, the crisis finds you. If you’re not in the office, the crisis finds somebody else.”

Corbyn had, before becoming leader, power without responsibility and now he has both.  Does the way in which he is handling his new responsibilities explain his failure to be a fully rounded, effective leader of a political party?

“Our problem is simply the capacity to respond to everything. After only two or three weeks in office we discovered we had a backlog of a hundred thousand emails sent to me. We had a backlog of a thousand invitations to speak at places all over the country, and all over the world for that matter. We started from scratch with our office, so just the sheer management of issues off this is huge. It’s now much better, it’s getting better. We’ve got more staff in place, a better team in place, it’s growing but it is quite difficult.

Also I’m quite concerned that if I spend time in the office someone will always find something for you to do. There’s always a crisis that needs your urgent attention. If I wasn’t there, either the crisis wouldn’t happen or it wouldn’t need your urgent attention. But the fact I’m there means that it becomes my problem, not somebody else’s. So I’m quite assertive about the need to ensure I go travelling round the country. I’m doing basically three days travelling every week. So we’re going everywhere. I did over a hundred events during the leadership campaign and by the end of the year I will probably have done 400 to 500 public meetings.”

“I feel constantly concerned that I’m spending all this time doing everything involved in all my leadership activity and sometimes I feel a tear between that and my responsibilities to the community that I represent. So I have a weekly fight over the schedule set out in my diary. That’s where I do get quite assertive, because I insist on spending time with those people and groups I always have represented even while now also travelling across the country – and also I make sure that I have time for myself. Half a day, or a day a week, so I can dig my allotment.”

‘What we’ve achieved so far’: an interview with Jeremy Corbyn

“Corbyn’s team prepare for PMQs over Monday and Tuesday, with Wednesday morning the key prep session.”

How Jeremy Corbyn is preparing for PMQs

“He keeps his feet on the ground by visiting not just his own constituency, but also by getting out of London altogether. Corbyn has built into his new routine a strict edict that nearly every week he only spends three and a half days at Westminster and that the rest of the time he’s out on the road, away from the Parliamentary bubble.

“There is a sort of relentless demand on one, so every week Prime Minister’s Question Time comes round, every week there’s a whole lot of things that have to be done.

And it’s balancing that with the need to not spend one’s whole time in one’s office, dealing with whatever crisis appears. I find if you are in an office, the crisis finds you. If you’re not in the office, the crisis finds somebody else.

And so I’m very insistent on doing my constituency work and constituency surgery. I had to cancel two interviews yesterday because so many people came. I was there for five hours [which is two and a half hours longer than he’d put in his diary].” ”

Jeremy Corbyn Interview: On His First 100 Days

When does Corbyn find the time to deal with matters such as the charges of anti-semitism?  Or, are such matters crises that are best left to somebody else?  And, if so, who is dealing with them?

Power, like nature, abhors a vacuum.  Who, then, is the Sergeant Towser, exercising power in the Labour leader’s office whilst Corbyn is perfecting his portrayal of Major Major for an upcoming remake of Catch 22?

Seumas Milne?

Seumas Milne expected Guardian to endorse Jeremy Corbyn and felt “very let down”

I wanted to believe in Jeremy Corbyn. But I can’t believe in Seumas Milne

Has Jeremy Corbyn’s spin doctor, Seumas Milne gone rogue?

Seumas Milne will finish Labour off

The Thin Controller

Thursday 26th May Update: Corbyn Decides to be Own Chief of Staff

In an email to staff, Fletcher said: “this is ‘flat’ structure in which there is no Chief of Staff but instead a senior team that reports in to Jeremy.  Thanks all very much for all your work for Jeremy and the Labour party. The changes we are making should have a further positive impact on our ability to work as an effective, well-organised unit that develops a stronger policy and campaigning edge.”

Jeremy Corbyn Calls In Ex-Civil Service Chief As He Overhauls Labour Leader’s Office

Corbyn orders review to ready Labour for potential snap election

Tuesday 5th July Update:

Life inside Jeremy Corbyn’s “paranoid” HQ laid bare as Labour staffers blow the lid on leader’s top team

Please sign petition calling on George Osborne to remove the 20% VAT on vet’s bills #LabourDoorstep

Paul Streeting is a pet owner, who lives on a small income.

Paul’s dog has helped him in lots of ways.  Helped him through some tough times.

Paul finds the 20% VAT on vet operations, a rip off for many pet owners and also many of those who are on small pensions.

Pets are a great comfort to many, including those who live alone, the elderly and people suffering from poor mental health.  Sometimes taking Winston Churchill’s Black Dog for a walk really means going out for a stroll with a four legged friend.

Please spend a couple of minutes and sign Paul’s petition.  And, if you are happy to do that then Paul would be very grateful, if you would encourage other people to put their names to the petition, too.

Thanks!

#Corbyn is out of the office, period … #Labour #Unite

“I find if you are in an office, the crisis finds you. If you’re not in the office, the crisis finds somebody else.”

Corbyn had, before becoming leader, power without responsibility and now he has both.  Does the way in which he is handling his new responsibilities explain his failure to be a fully rounded, effective leader of a political party?

“Our problem is simply the capacity to respond to everything. After only two or three weeks in office we discovered we had a backlog of a hundred thousand emails sent to me. We had a backlog of a thousand invitations to speak at places all over the country, and all over the world for that matter. We started from scratch with our office, so just the sheer management of issues off this is huge. It’s now much better, it’s getting better. We’ve got more staff in place, a better team in place, it’s growing but it is quite difficult.

Also I’m quite concerned that if I spend time in the office someone will always find something for you to do. There’s always a crisis that needs your urgent attention. If I wasn’t there, either the crisis wouldn’t happen or it wouldn’t need your urgent attention. But the fact I’m there means that it becomes my problem, not somebody else’s. So I’m quite assertive about the need to ensure I go travelling round the country. I’m doing basically three days travelling every week. So we’re going everywhere. I did over a hundred events during the leadership campaign and by the end of the year I will probably have done 400 to 500 public meetings.”

“I feel constantly concerned that I’m spending all this time doing everything involved in all my leadership activity and sometimes I feel a tear between that and my responsibilities to the community that I represent. So I have a weekly fight over the schedule set out in my diary. That’s where I do get quite assertive, because I insist on spending time with those people and groups I always have represented even while now also travelling across the country – and also I make sure that I have time for myself. Half a day, or a day a week, so I can dig my allotment.”

‘What we’ve achieved so far’: an interview with Jeremy Corbyn

“Corbyn’s team prepare for PMQs over Monday and Tuesday, with Wednesday morning the key prep session.”

How Jeremy Corbyn is preparing for PMQs

“He keeps his feet on the ground by visiting not just his own constituency, but also by getting out of London altogether. Corbyn has built into his new routine a strict edict that nearly every week he only spends three and a half days at Westminster and that the rest of the time he’s out on the road, away from the Parliamentary bubble.

“There is a sort of relentless demand on one, so every week Prime Minister’s Question Time comes round, every week there’s a whole lot of things that have to be done.

And it’s balancing that with the need to not spend one’s whole time in one’s office, dealing with whatever crisis appears. I find if you are in an office, the crisis finds you. If you’re not in the office, the crisis finds somebody else.

And so I’m very insistent on doing my constituency work and constituency surgery. I had to cancel two interviews yesterday because so many people came. I was there for five hours [which is two and a half hours longer than he’d put in his diary].” ”

Jeremy Corbyn Interview: On His First 100 Days

When does Corbyn find the time to deal with matters such as the charges of anti-semitism?  Or, are such matters crises that are best left to somebody else?  And, if so, who is dealing with them?

Power, like nature, abhors a vacuum.  Who, then, is the Sergeant Towser, exercising power in the Labour leader’s office whilst Corbyn is perfecting his portrayal of Major Major for an upcoming remake of Catch 22?  Seumas Milne?

Seumas Milne expected Guardian to endorse Jeremy Corbyn and felt “very let down”

I wanted to believe in Jeremy Corbyn. But I can’t believe in Seumas Milne

Has Jeremy Corbyn’s spin doctor, Seumas Milne gone rogue?

Seumas Milne will finish Labour off

The Thin Controller

Thursday 26th May Update: Corbyn Decides to be Own Chief of Staff

In an email to staff, Fletcher said: “this is ‘flat’ structure in which there is no Chief of Staff but instead a senior team that reports in to Jeremy.  Thanks all very much for all your work for Jeremy and the Labour party. The changes we are making should have a further positive impact on our ability to work as an effective, well-organised unit that develops a stronger policy and campaigning edge.”

Jeremy Corbyn Calls In Ex-Civil Service Chief As He Overhauls Labour Leader’s Office

Corbyn orders review to ready Labour for potential snap election

Tuesday 5th July Update:

Life inside Jeremy Corbyn’s “paranoid” HQ laid bare as Labour staffers blow the lid on leader’s top team