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Labour Party's general secretary Iain McNicol resigns to 'pursue new challenges'

The Labour Party’s general secretary Iain McNicol has resigned from his role in order to “pursue new challenges”.

The former trade union official had served as the Labour Party’s most senior employee since 2011, with responsibility for recruiting party staff, overseeing campaigns, organising annual conferences, and guarding Labour’s legal and constitutional structures.

Having been appointed to the role during the party leadership of Ed Miliband, Mr McNicol went on to experience a turbulent time under current party leader Jeremy Corbyn.

During an attempt by Labour MPs to remove Mr Corbyn as leader in 2016, Mr McNicol was reportedly accused of trying to stop the left-winger from being able to stand for re-election.

The row subsequently led to reports Mr Corbyn’s allies were plotting to dislodge Mr McNicol as the party’s chief, amid Labour’s turmoil in the wake of the EU referendum result.

Image: It has been suggested Jeremy Corbyn has now strengthened his grip on the party

Mr McNicol’s departure prompted suggestions Mr Corbyn’s supporters have now further tightened their grip on Labour’s internal machinery.

Last month, three candidates backed by Corbyn backing group Momentum were elected to Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee (NEC).

It has raised expectations an ally of Mr Corbyn will now be appointed as Mr McNicol’s successor.

Swansea West MP Geraint Davies, who backed Mr Corbyn’s rival Owen Smith during the 2016 Labour leadership contest, urged the party to choose a successor to Mr McNicol who “works for unity across the broad church of the party to deliver victory & success for all our communities”.

Fellow so-called Labour “moderate”, Streatham MP Chuka Umunna, said Mr McNicol had “done a smashing job for our party and our politics, and has had to put up with a lot of flak for doing so”.

He added: “We owe him a huge debt of gratitude.”

Announcing his resignation late on Friday, Mr McNicol described being Labour’s general secretary as “an absolute honour and a privilege”.

He said in a statement: “I have now decided to move on to pursue new challenges in the service of the Labour Party and wider labour movement.

“I would like to thank our fantastic staff across the country for their brilliant work and support. A team who continuously go above and beyond to deliver for Labour.”

Mr McNicol added: “I will continue to support Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership and will work closely with him and our whole parliamentary team to take Labour to victory at the next general election.”

Mr Corbyn thanked Mr McNicol for his “long and dedicated service”, adding: “He has run our party’s organisation at a time of great change, including a near tripling of the membership, two general elections and the EU referendum.

“Iain has served the Labour Party and trade union movement in a wide range of roles throughout his career and is a credit to our movement.

“I am confident Iain will continue to play a major role in politics and our party, and will support our team inside and outside Parliament with his experience and skills.”

Labour officials will meet to decide the process for the election of Mr McNicol’s successor.

Have Labour HQ deliberately defunded Jeremy Corbyn’s office?

The Skwawkbox has supposedly received information suggesting that Labour Headquarters are deliberately under-funding Jeremy Corbyn’s office. Allegedly, he is receiving half the funds Ed Miliband received during his period as Labour Leader. The claim originates in the Huffington Post. Executive Editor Paul Waugh pointed out that the leader’s tax returns, despite being legitimate, did raise an…

Most people have someone or something that is the inspiration for persevering through a particularly difficult day. Something that puts life’s struggles in perspective and sheds light on the good.

For me, that inspiring mental image is a person.

Marjory “May” McIntosh McNicol was born in the Scottish highlands in 1780. At age 20, she married her husband, a prosperous neighboring farmer, before both the minister’s son and before her kinsman, the future Chief of Clan Mackintosh, who stood as witnesses.

May and Donald had seven children, with the last born in 1818 when May was 37. However, tragedy struck and Donald died of unknown causes by about 1827.

May was left a widow. Her children, with the exception of Anne, the eldest, were unmarried and dependent on her.

So what did the forty-seven year old widow do? She packed her bags, gathered her children, left the small village of Petty, the only one she and her family had known for generations, and sailed for the wilds of Canada.

Writing home to her brother-in-law in 1833, May reflected, “I live since last January on my own one hundred acres of fine land and expect to buy some more very soon, what crop I raised this season looks remarkably well. The wheat is mostly all cut in this quarter, and in most places is a very heavy crop.” She advises her brother-in-law to tell her sister, Ann, that if she comes to Canada, she may have twenty acres of land, but she and her son will have to “take up their hatchets and cut down the large trees.”

With her children and the little money left to her by her husband, May managed to build and operate a successful farm.

Perhaps the merit of May’s decision to risk everything is best summed up by her son, who, in a later letter, remarked, “I am very surprised at the young men of [my home village in Scotland] that they are downhearted and low in spirit, when they would stay so long there as slaves ... let them come here and be their own Master.”

Sadly, not all was a triumph: May’s daughter, Annie, lost her husband to the “ague,” shortly after arriving to Canada and was left to raise her three young children, including a babe-in-arms, as a single mother. And the family certainly faced innumerable hardships as they struggled to carve a home out of the unforgiving Canadian wilderness.

May died in her eighties and is buried in the churchyard in the rural Canadian village where she settled. I am lucky enough now to have transcripts of her letters home to Scotland, which a Scottish cousin found in his relatives’ belongings and donated to a museum some years ago. I read them sometimes and feel almost close to her, as though she had written them to me.

Plain Old White Ironstone Bowls – Perfect for Chili

A good chili bowl should hold chili. A better than good bowl for chili should not be too wide  – leave the wide bowl for cereal. A wide bowl holds the contents certainly but the narrower width means that the chili will cool down quicker. Maybe a small thing. But early pottery manufacturers in Ohio recognized these small yet critical differences for the food service industry – restaurants, hotels,…