Andy McSmith's Diary: They haven’t got enough Momentum yet

An internal document produced by Momentum, the pressure group that grew out of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership campaign, has surfaced via The Daily Telegraph.

Bits of it will raise hackles in other parts of the Labour Party. It is proposed that Momentum formalise its structures, start recruiting a paid membership and admit people who have been “unfairly” barred from the Labour Party. The latter proposal is particularly contentious, but there is a logic to it. Last year, Mark Serwotka, leader of Britain’s seventh-biggest union, was barred by party headquarters from casting a vote for Corbyn, but Momentum would not want to refuse him membership, should he apply.

That aside, the document is interesting because of the distance it reveals between Momentum’s ambitions and its current position. The organisers aspire to recruit 20,000 paid-up members and generate enough income to hire staff and pay an annual salary bill of £243,000. Income so far has been below £34,000.

The document also reveals voting figures which provide a clue as to how many people are sufficiently committed to turn up to Momentum’s business meetings. The most active regional branch, predictably, is London, where it is recorded that 38 people voted at a meeting. In five other regions, a combined total of 83 votes were cast. Time will tell, but the point at which Momentum is poised to take over the Labour Party has not arrived yet.

The publishers who Biteback

All this talk about left-wing infiltration of the Labour Party has inspired Biteback, niche publishers of political books, to reissue a tome written in the 1980s by the journalist Michael Crick.

It was a study of Militant, a Trotskyist sect which successfully burrowed into the Labour Party. Interesting timing.

Galloway’s spiritual side…

George Galloway has claimed to be a “spiritual son of Tony Benn”. He was referring, in an interview with The Huffington Post, to Benn’s leading role in the 1975 campaign to get Britain out of the Common Market. When the EU referendum begins, the Out campaign can count on having Galloway on its side. But is taking a stand on the EU a “spiritual” matter?

One of the many differences between Galloway and the man he claims as a spiritual father is that the late Tony Benn was a devoted husband who was surrounded by a loving family to the end.

I forget how many wives and lovers Gorgeous George has been through. And Benn would never have made a comment like the one Galloway made apropos the Julian Assange rape allegation that “not everybody needs to be asked prior to each insertion”.

A fair deal? Don’t bank on it

The Government, as you may know, is in the process of legislating to prevent any more cases of civil servants, ministers, or council officials leaving their jobs with six-figure golden goodbyes.

There will be an upper limit of £95,000 on exit payments – but not for everyone in the public sector. Bankers working for Bradford and Bingley, the Royal Bank of Scotland and Northern Rock – all of which had to be rescued by the taxpayer during the banking crisis – will be exempt. “Why?” asked the Labour MP Kevin Brennan. Because the banks are only partially and temporarily owned by the Government, the Treasury minister Greg Hands explained, and that is “fundamentally different to public sector bodies that receive ongoing funding from the taxpayer”.

I am sure we all agree that it would be outrageous to expect a banker to have to exist on a standard of living that is only good enough for a top-ranking civil servant.