Labour shadow minister Gloria de Piero's office manager defects to the Conservatives

The office manager of Labour frontbencher Gloria de Piero has defected to the Conservatives.



In a shock move, Lee Anderson - who was also a Labour councillor - said he had become disillusioned with the "hard left" direction of the party.

Incredibly, he remains employed by Ashfield MP Ms de Piero, who is Shadow Justice Minister.

Mr Anderson - a former miner who took part in the strike in the 1980s - has been joined in jumping ship to the Tories by Chris Baron, who was also a Labour member of Ashfield District Council. He said Labour has "changed for the worse".

The move, which was revealed by the Guido Fawkes website, is a major embarrassment for Labour and again highlights the problem Jeremy Corbyn has in appealing to the party's traditional, working class voters.

Mr Anderson said: "The Labour party is no longer the party I joined. Both locally and nationally, it has been taken over by the hard-left who are more interested in fighting internal ideological battles than standing up for the priorities of working men and women.

"I have joined the Conservatives as they are now the only party of aspiration who listen and act on the everyday concerns of working people."

Mr Baron said: "Having served as a representative of the Labour party for three decades, this has been a heart-wrenching decision, but the Labour party has changed, and it has changed for the worse.

"Elected members should try to leave their posts having improved things for people, but in Ashfield, the Labour council are making things worse.

"The people of Ashfield want their elected representative to pursue sensible policies driven by mainstream politics, which is why I have taken the decision to leave Labour and join the Conservatives."

GHASTLY

Mr Anderson's decision is a remarkable turnaround from just two years ago, when he attacked the Conservatives in an article for the LabourList website.

Calling on Labour to do more to appeal to working class voters on housing and welfare, he said: "I know the cycle of benefit dependency is not an easy one to break and that it's not an easy problem to solve.

"But I want Labour to be the party that solves it - not the ghastly Conservative Party of Iain Duncan Smith or George Osborne. They don't truly understand working people and they never will."

Ben Bradley, a Conservative Party vice-chairman and MP for neighbouring Mansfield, said: "I’ve worked with Lee and Chris for a long time and I’m delighted to welcome them to the party.

"They are an asset to the local community and both have a record of prioritising the needs of the people they represent above all else. They’ve always been open and wanted to work together at the council, regardless of party politics and the pressure they were put under by Labour’s leaders.

"I’m so glad they’ve chosen to carry on and to join us in the Conservative Party, because they could so easily have let the hard-left in the Labour Party force them out altogether. I think it’s clear who really represents the priorities of working people in North Notts, and it’s pretty sad that Labour are trying so hard to drown out the voices of their most sensible and capable councillors."

A spokesman for Gloria de Piero said she could not comment on staffing matters.