[Oboogie]

I'm going to make a prediction that the Labour politician who is going to jump into bed with Reform this week will be David Blunkett. If you see some of the articles he has written for the Telegraph over the last year they all seem to lean towards Reform. He has called for the suspension of the ECHR to stop the boats, he has called for a crackdown on benefits and he has opposed the government's policies on net zero.

Laura Kuenssberg asked Tice if Kate Hoey was the defector, I must admit, I'd completely forgotten about her but it's astonishing that she didn't join UKIP years ago.

[Tubby Isaacs]

She left Labour in 2019. It might be her, or Gisela Stuart who also left then. Reform types aren't always the most precise. It could be Blunkett, but I'm sure there are several Labour Lords who've got very rightwing as they've got older, and whose peerage made some sort of sense at the time.

I have mercifully avoided Blunkett's journalism, but would joining Reform help him? There's always a market for a "liberal mugged by reality", so joining Reform might not hurt. But my guess is that his appeal to the Right is stronger if he stays in Labour. Blah blah blah I'm not going anywhere blah, I'm the one who's really Labour, why should I, blah, why won't Starmer listen to me?

[Tubby Isaacs]

For conoisseurs of Labour politicians swinging to the Right, I give the case of Lord Chalfont.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alun_Gwyn ... l1979p1-18

In fairness to him, he didn't hang about in Labour, and the party was genuinely becoming much more hostile to his Labour Right politics at the time (early 70s). But he certainly hung about in the Lords, till 2015, when he was 95. God knows what he was like then. Already in the 80s, he was a strong advocate of sports tours to Apartheid South Africa.

Labour's Lords reform may be modest, but at least Chalfont would have been forced to retire 15 years earlier.

[Bones McCoy]

For conoisseurs of Labour politicians swinging to the Right, I give the case of Lord Chalfont.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alun_Gwyn ... l1979p1-18

In fairness to him, he didn't hang about in Labour, and the party was genuinely becoming much more hostile to his Labour Right politics at the time (early 70s). But he certainly hung about in the Lords, till 2015, when he was 95. God knows what he was like then. Already in the 80s, he was a strong advocate of sports tours to Apartheid South Africa.

Labour's Lords reform may be modest, but at least Chalfont would have been forced to retire 15 years earlier.

Another Rhyming Slang politician, similar to Jeremy Hunt.

[davidjay]

I'm going to make a prediction that the Labour politician who is going to jump into bed with Reform this week will be David Blunkett. If you see some of the articles he has written for the Telegraph over the last year they all seem to lean towards Reform. He has called for the suspension of the ECHR to stop the boats, he has called for a crackdown on benefits and he has opposed the government's policies on net zero.

Laura Kuenssberg asked Tice if Kate Hoey was the defector, I must admit, I'd completely forgotten about her but it's astonishing that she didn't join UKIP years ago.

She was more likely to join the DUP.

[The Weeping Angel]

I'm pretty sure she is still in the DUP.

[Oboogie]

I'm pretty sure she is still in the DUP.

Her Wiki makes no mention of the DUP. It did however inform me that she left Labour in December 2019 (which I either never knew or had forgotten) so, in light of that, I think it's a stretch to call her a Labour defector.
It's either someone else or Reform are bullshitting again - either is possible.