McDonough Kebab: The curious tale of Tony McDonough


During last year’s Labour Conference in Liverpool, local journalist Tony McDonough shared his picture of Neil Horan outside the perimeter of that conference on Twitter, which he posted under the hashtag of #LabourAntisemitism, even going so far as to tag the Gnasher Jew account.
However, Gnasher Jew stated that Horan’s presence was ‘not really Labour’s fault’, which is probably the only time in the last four years that Gnasher hasn’t attributed something Anti-Semitic to the party. It comes to something when Gnasher offers a more reasoned approach to events.
As someone who attended that particular conference, I felt compelled to ask McDonough how the party could possibly be responsible for what went on outside the boundaries of conference, or for insisting that the police take action against Horan. As McDonough blocked me instead of responding, I can only surmise that he was butt-hurt by Gnasher’s ambivalence.
McDonough’s animosity for the movement in its current guise was hardly a secret by this point. When he is not putting the world to rights on the world famous Liverpool Business News website, he has plenty to say on politics in general and Labour in particular, claiming to be in the loop where the latter is concerned. Since I set up a new Twitter account to focus on politics without hindrance, I am once again exposed to McDonough’s particular brand of bullshit.
I tend to baulk slightly whenever I see a Twitter profile that mentions the words ‘award winning’ like that is supposed to give them some kind of edge over their peers. The way I see it, if you have to highlight this you’ve either won an award of comparatively low prestige (or one of high prestige from the distant past).
Another alarm bell is when you feel the need to state how many years you’ve been in the business. To illustrate, Kay Burley’s Twitter profile states that she had done more live television than anyone else like that is somehow significant. That said the history books might yet look upon the time Burley has spent with Royal Baby obsessives as the most culturally significant phenomenon of what has been a turbulent decade. You heard it here first kids.
Even when you refer to your cycling proficiency badge and your Twelvety years in the business, your remit is such that no one gives a rat’s arse about your output, so you feel the urge to dip your toe into local politics by way of validation. Only all you bring to the table is your own sense of confirmation bias with encouragement by those resentful of the change of political direction of the party in which they are associated.
As McDonough felt compelled to chat shit about last Sunday’s Hustings for the selection of the Prospective Parliamentary Candidate (PPC) for Liverpool West Derby, again as someone who was actually there I wasn’t going to let this go. On this occasion, McDonough felt he had the upper hand here so was willing to engage.
In the first instance, I shot down his claim that everyone who voted in the PPC Elections had gone home, seeing as I had voted in this election but stuck around to find out who would win what turned out to be a lively affair. Most of the members had gone home, which was entirely a matter for them, but not everybody.
McDonough then referred to the departure of one of the tellers, who had arranged to go to a concert. Seeing as there were still five tellers in attendance even after the departure of the teller in question, this was nowhere near as significant as McDonough would have hoped. And it gets better, but I’ll save this for later.
McDonough then went onto state that the whole selection process was a stitch up, geared to give eventual winner Ian Byrne the strongest chance of winning due to the omission of Nick Crofts and Barry Kushner from the selection list, whilst failing to consider the inclusion of Angela Coleman, who eventually lost to Byrne by just two votes.
Then McDonough whines about not even managing to carry out a stitch up properly, without providing a shred of evidence that the party even carried out this supposed stitch up. Some journalist.
Still at least McDonough can have his ego massaged by those who, like him, are hostile to the transformation of Labour since Jeremy Corbyn became leader. Like local Councillor Malcolm Kennedy, for instance. Yeah they had a fair old laugh at that teller leaving to go to that gig. In view of this exchange, I wonder how this piss-poor Waldorf & Statler tribute act can deal with the fact that the teller in question was none other than another local councillor, namely Anthony Lavelle.
The same Anthony Lavelle whom appeared on Angela Coleman’s campaign literature.

The same Anthony Lavelle whom Councillor Kennedy follows on Twitter.

The same Anthony Lavelle also followed on Twitter by one of the Gnasher Crew in Euan Philipps (looking as sane as ever).

So if McDonough wants to keep pushing the mismanaged stitch-up line then this would surely be at the hands of someone more closely aligned to Kennedy than Byrne politically. So much for being in the loop eh?
For the avoidance of doubt, neither Byrne nor Coleman were my own first choice. Even though I knew that Emily Brothers and Troy Gallagher were rank outsiders, that didn’t stop me sticking round to witness the outcome at first hand to find out what was actually going on. Because it kind of helps to be at the scene before you start shouting the odds. Something McDonough would do well to remember, if he was remotely interested in finding out the truth.
