Kevin Schofield is Politics Editor of HuffPost UK.
was under the cosh over Labour’s woes in Rochdale and, despite predictions to the contrary by economists, inflation did not go up again when the latest figures were published on Wednesday.That was when the Office for National Statistics confirmed that the UK economy had shrunk by 0.3% in the final quarter of last year.
And while that was not wholly unexpected, the scale of the defeats – especially in Wellingborough – confirmed the party’s worst fears.“This has been the position for 18 months and it’s showing no sign of changing,” one former Tory cabinet member told HuffPost UK then. That is despite the Labour leader enduring one of his worst weeks since taking on the job nearly four years ago.
HuffPost UK has been told that the party was initially urged not to axe Ali by Jewish groups, who feared it would hand an open goal to George Galloway, who is also standing in Rochdale for his British Workers Party.The Labour leadership considered announcing that their candidate would not take the party whip if he won, and would also not stand at the general election. However, the emergence of the second recording made his position untenable.
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