Yahoo News Actress Maureen Lipman revives iconic advert to attack Jeremy Corbyn
Actor Maureen Lipman has revived an iconic BT advert from the 1980s to attack Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party.
The Coronation Street actor has filmed a new version of her advert from the 80s and 90s in which she attacks the “bullying, hectoring and driving out” of Jewish Labour MPs.
In the video, which was posted by The Sun, her character Beattie says Mr Corbyn has an “ology in extremism”.
Speaking on the phone, she says to another unseen character on the phone: “They’re not socialists, you know what they are, Nora? They’re extremists.”
She also criticises Labour’s plans to nationalise BT Openreach, which the party says would provide free full-fibre broadband to everyone in the UK by 2030.
Ms Lipman says Mr Corbyn wants to get his “allotment hands” on her broadband and would “nationalise daffodils” given the chance, and in the video she urges voters to abandon Labour.
She told The Sun that Mr Corbyn’s pledge to nationalise BT’s broadband was the moment she began to think what her Beattie character would think of it.
In response, Twitter users pointed out that Ms Lipman had said she would not vote Labour under Ed Miliband’s leadership in 2014.
At the time, she criticised Mr Miliband for supporting a motion in the House of Commons that recognised Palestine as a state.
Here's our front page this week - addressed not to our usual readers but to our fellow British citizens pic.twitter.com/7K5qi8GhBJ
— The Jewish Chronicle (@JewishChron) November 7, 2019
Labour and Mr Corbyn have been repeatedly criticised for how they have dealt with antisemitism within its ranks, causing some politicians and supporters to leave the party.
Earlier this month, the Jewish Chronicle devoted a front page urging non-Jewish people in the UK to “act on” the fact most people abhor racism when going to the polls.
Mr Corbyn has acknowledged there is a problem in his party, and insists he is doing everything within his power to stamp out antisemitism within Labour.
"We recognise that antisemitism has occurred in pockets within the Labour Party, causing pain and hurt to our Jewish community in the Labour Party and the rest of the country," he said.
"Antisemitism is a poison in our society, I am determined to drive it out of our society, including wherever it raises its head in my own party and that's exactly what we are doing."
