Emily Thornberry lets rip at top Labour aides saying Corbyn was 'badly let down' - The Mirror

The shadow foreign secretary is the first person to declare the intention to stand for the top job after Labour suffered its worst defeat since the 1930s

Emily Thornberry has let rip at the advisors surrounding Jeremy Corbyn saying the Labour leader was "badly let down" after the party suffered its worst defeat since the 1930s.

Resisting the urge to name names Ms Thornberry, who has declared her intention to stand for the top job, attacked the advisors surrounding the leader who have "undermined him".

She told the Today Programme: "I think that Jeremy has been badly let down. I think that Jeremy has been badly advised. I think there have been times when we have made decisions and that hasn't been what has been briefed out to the media.

"That has undermined him, and drained away, I think too often, his authenticity, which was something which was so important and resonated so much with people in 2017.

"And I think that there have been a number of mistakes made between 2017 and 2019 that undermined him so fundamentally.

"As I say, I think he was let down."

Corbyn's Director of Communications Seumas Milne faced a huge backlash from MPs in the wake of the Salisbury attack when he went a lot further in his briefing to journalists than the Labour leader had when he appeared to compare the evidence for direct Russian involvement in the poisoning, with the shaky case for war in Iraq.

In the wake of the election result a number of Labour MPs have criticised both Seumas Milne and Corbyn's top aide Karie Murphy who were moved to permanent contracts earlier this year.

It means more junior staff are facing losing their jobs while the well-paid senior advisors, who have been blamed by many for the defeat, will get to keep theirs.

Last year, Milne was paid £104,000 while Murphy received £92,000.

One Labour staffer at risk of redundancy told the Guardian: “Where there is real anger here is what’s happened with Karie and Seumas being put on permanent contracts with the Labour party. It’s not rare, it is unprecedented. It has never happened before.”

He added: “It’s one rule for some, one rule for the others.”

The Shadow Foreign Secretary, who is in favour of remaining in the EU, was notably absent from the party's election campaign.

But she denied that she had been deliberately kept off the airwaves.

"See, I don't recognise that caricature," she said today.

"I was obviously available, and it was a matter not for me but for those making decisions during the election as to whether or not I was used, and it was obviously a matter for them and I'm a team player so I went off and worked in marginal seats, which I thought was an important thing to do."