In a shock move Friday Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn sacked all of his shadow ministers who didn’t resign last year in protest at his dictatorial attitude towards leadership of the party.

“Call it spring cleaning, call it squad rotation, call it a reminder that no one has a job for life, or indeed more than eleven months,” said Party spokesman Lavrentiy Beria.

“Just don’t call it a purge – Jeremy is no Stalin and until we win a seat in central Cheshire we don’t have any salt mines, sorry “re-education camps” to send dissenters down,” he added smirking.

Mr Beria pointed out that the ministers in question had dared to go against the mighty leader, sorry Jeremy, and vote in favour of an amendment to the Queen’s speech calling for Britain to remain within the customs union and single market.

Questioned on whether supporting the amendment might not be a good idea given that the big swing to Labour in the recent general election is widely reckoned to have been due to young first time voters most of whom strongly support the UK remaining in the European union, Mr Beria was unapologetic.

“They are young and still have much to learn, like the best way to avoid a job for life in the saline production industry and hence how to stick around long enough to get old,” he winked.

The Rochdale Herald attempted to contact all of the sacked shadow ministers but received no answer from their private offices and on contacting Labour party HQ, a receptionist denied having ever heard of the MPs in question.

“Can’t say I recall those names,” she said. “Why don’t you call back later when we’ve finished airbrushing the party photographs, err…I mean checking the records…”