While Jess Phillips was still in the Labour leadership race, many saw her as the “most right-wing candidate”. She has now passed the baton to Lisa Nandy and Keir Starmer, who are also pitching to the Labour right. But one group of satirical musicians couldn’t let Phillips leave the race without a special homage to her disastrous campaign.
Phillips: not what Labour supporters wanted or needed
According to i News, Phillips was offering “Blair-like electoralism of a give-them-what-they-want sort”. She also had a strong anti-Corbyn record and reportedly once praised hard-right MP Jacob Rees-Mogg as a “true gent”.
Phillips had long been a favourite among out-of-touch media hacks. And her withdrawal from the leadership race inspired fawning headlines like Jess Phillips pulling out of the Labour race means party members won’t hear uncomfortable truths and Jess Phillips’s exit is a lesson in the limits of “straight-talking” politics. The truth, however, was that she simply offered nothing of interest to the majority of Labour supporters. So as Jacobin pointed out, her campaign ended up as “a cautionary tale for substanceless centrists”.
‘A Kendall in the wind’
With all of this in mind, satirical songwriters The Iain Duncan Smiths invoked the spirit of failed 2015 Blairite candidate Liz Kendall in their hilarious tribute to Jess Phillips:
An emotional musical tribute to Jess Phillips and her all-too-brief leadership campaign – this is “Kendall in the Wind” pic.twitter.com/bS9X3MJJdX
— TheIainDuncanSmiths (@TheIDSmiths) January 22, 2020
All those celebrating Phillips’s withdrawal will surely find this song to be a fitting tribute.
Featured image via Channel 4 News/YouTube
