Sunday, April 03, 2011

Leicester South: Jonathan Ashworth turns out to be Jon Ashworth

On the way home from visiting the tin tabernacle (and much else that I shall share with you presently) I picked up a discarded leaflet at Leicester station. It turned out to come from the Labour candidate in the by-election on 5 May.

The first thing to note is that he is standing as Jon Ashworth not Jonathan Ashworth.

There is a pledge to fight the "unfair Tory cuts". He does not say what fair cuts Labour would make instead or explain why the Labour-run council decided to freeze the city's council tax this year.

He also says he and his wife "will be proud to live here in Leicester". That is nice to know, but people move to Leicester every day. You don't have to win a by-election first.

Most of the leaflet is pretty anodyne stuff. The only real point of interest is his claim to have "a strong working-class background". That is unusual in someone at the top of the Labour party these days. And certainly unusual in someone called Jonathan.

Can any reader cast light on this?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

No, but the Labour NEC fixed the shortlist so he would get an easy chance at getting selected.

Anonymous said...

Heaven forbid, someone who's working-class and called Jonathen

Anonymous said...

*Jonathan