Nick Timothy, Mrs May’s former Downing Street chief of staff, has torn apart the credentials of Jeremy Corbyn’s potential successors and insisted Labour has become the “party of the few, not the many” with no one with the “faintest idea of what to do about it”. Labour suffered its worst election result since 1935 after its radical left-wing manifesto and neutral position on Brexit was widely rejected by the electorate. So far, Shadow Brexit Secretary Sir Kier Starmer, Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry, and backbench MPs Clive Lewis, Jess Phillips, and Lisa Nandy have announced they are running for the top job.
Shadow Business Secretary Rebecca Long-Bailey, seen as the candidate favoured by Mr Corbyn and John McDonnell, and Labour Party Chairman, Ian Lavery, are both understood to be considering a leadership bid.
The leadership contest is yet to officially get started, however each of the five candidates have made their opening pitch of the job.
Mr Timothy has slammed the approach taken by the candidates so far, and insisted the contest has turned into a battle of who has had the “toughest upbringing”.
He wrote in the Daily Telegraph: “The Labour leadership candidates understand what has happened, but show not the faintest idea of what to do about it.
“Rebecca Long Bailey tells tall tales about watching her father worry about redundancy. Sir Keir Starmer pitches himself as the man who stood up for striking miners and poll tax protestors.
“Jess Phillips – whose mother was deputy chief executive of the NHS Confederation – keeps up the pretence that she is working class.
“It all resembles the Monty Python sketch in which wealthy Yorkshireman compete over who had the toughest upbringing.
“If Emily Thornberry described having a handful of hot gravel for breakfast, Jess Phillips would shout ‘luxury!’ in protest. It is backward-looking, nostalgic and inauthentic.”
Mrs May’s former advisor added the problems within the Labour Party go way beyond the leadership and their upbringing.
At the election, Boris Johnson smashed through the Labour’s ’red wall’ in the heartlands in the north of England with 48 percent of working class voters backing the Tories, compared to just 33 percent voting for Labour.
Mr Timothy claimed millions of supporters abandoned Labour “because they cannot stand what the party has become”.
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“Working-class voters are leaving Labour because they cannot stand what the party has become.”
Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee will meet later today to set the timetable for the contest.
The leadership race is expected to formally start on Tuesday with a new leader set to be elected by the end of March.
