The baggage carousels at O’Hare airport for flights from the UK this week had some intriguing folk waiting for luggage. The Democratic Party’s farewell to Joe Biden as president and coronation of Kamala Harris as candidate in Chicago has attracted key Labour figures observing the transition. Jonathan Ashworth, the former shadow frontbencher who fell to the shock defeat of the July election due to a surge of pro-Gaza activism in his Leicester South constituency and now co-runs the Labour Together think tank, arrived with party general secretary David Evans.
Communications boss Matthew Doyle is due to attend Harris’s introductory speech on Thursday and even Morgan McSweeney, the strategist Sir Keir Starmer trusts on thorny issues — like the longer-term remedy for the summer riots — is taking a break from Gradgrind British issues to assess the outlook for the Democrats under a new leader.
