Rolling coverage of all the day’s political developments as they happen
8.47am BST
Good morning. Owen Smith, who is challenging Jeremy Corbyn for the Labour leadership, has until now been been quite complimentary about Corbyn’s values – he has criticised Corbyn’s leadership skills, rather than his beliefs – but there was a change of tack on Newsnight last night when he questioned Corbyn’s patriotism.
Smith said that Corbyn’s “metropolitan” politics meant he did not understand the importance of national identity. He told the programme:
One of the weaknesses we have had recently is that people worry that Labour isn’t serious about security, that it is a lesser issue for Jeremy. I’m not sure that’s right, but he has certainly got a different perspective on some of those things – on patriotism if you like; and on security, on defence I think I have got a more traditional Labour perspective on that – an old-fashioned Labour perspective, if you like.
I think Jeremy, to be honest, doesn’t really understand sometimes the way in which people have a very strong, perhaps socially conservative sense of place, sense of where they are from. I am not sure I’ve heard him talking much about Scotland and identity or about Wales and identity or indeed about England and identity.
I am saying that I think it is something that is not core to his set of beliefs. He has got a set of liberal perspectives and left perspectives on things and nationhood and nationalism and patriotism aren’t really part of his make-up.
Politics blog | The Guardian http://ift.tt/2amMaDP
Sig Nordal 