Claims of ‘airbrushing’ after Jeremy Corbyn does not appear in Labour Party conference brochure

LABOUR has been accused of “airbrushing” its leader out of the party as he does not appear in its brochure for next month’s conference.

By the time it starts Jeremy Corbyn will know whether he has retained his job as the result of the leadership contest will be announced the previous day.

But it has been suggested Labour might be trying to “airbrush Corbyn out of history” in case Owen Smith manages to beat him.

Channel 4 News political correspondent Michael Crick tweeted a picture of the magazine pointing out it has “not a single picture of Jeremy Corbyn but three of Tom Watson!”

He added that the brochure has a picture of past leader Clement Attlee, but neither Corbyn nor Smith are visible.

Twitter user David Longhorn thinks the best way for Labour to win in 2020 would be to clone Clement Attlee – the Labour leader from 1935 to 1955, and the PM from 1945 to 1951.

But another commented: “If they cloned Attlee he would be branded a Tory and be purged.”

Fearing some kind of purge is @thedevilstuna who writes “Maybe it’s because once the purge is over Tom Watson will be the only member left #keepcorbyn”

But Simon Catterall seems to think Watson is so prominent in the brochure “because he’s cute”.

And two Corbyn supporters reference the attempts by Labour MPs before the summer holidays to get Jeremy Corbyn to resign.

Instead the veteran leftie is clinging on to the leadership, despite the overwhelming no confidence vote from MPs on his side of the House of Commons.

But sadly for the conspiracy theorists, Labour said there is a good reason why neither of the leadership candidates appear in the brochure.

The party said: “The Labour Party 2016 Annual conference magazines have been printed ahead of the announcement of the Leadership Election.

“No candidate in the leadership election features in the magazine.”

A Labour party official told there are “very strict” rules on impartiality during a leadership contest and that Watson appeared because he is the most senior elected official whose position it not being contested.