This Once Great Movement Of Ours

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The problem is that UK courts are of the opinion it's not their role to review internal decisions by political parties.

They will up to a point, but it's a carefully and consciously limited one and no further than they would be minded to review decisions made by a chess club. And in fact they're governed by the same branch of the law.

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I am reliably informed that he's another former LibDem supporter - a full-blown Orange Booker, apparently.

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The point is that 'the Left' can mean different things in an internal Labour Party context depending on the context. Rayner has generally been associated with the left-wing of the Party as most people would define it, but she's also very firmly within its mainstream - which is enough for certain types to deem her as not 'really' being on the Left. She is also not (and never was) a member of the SCG. Related to this, she was also not a part of what I ended up calling (for want of a better term) the 'Left Cadre' during the Corbyn leadership, and there are certainly people who like to equate those two things absolutely. A big factor there, of course, was that she's a member of the 'wrong' union.

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...with Yvette as the shadow secretary of state it’s certainly suggest a certain trend about where immigration policy might be going.

Not necessarily policy (which tends be more stable than widely assumed) but certainly vibes.

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One big difference between now and 2015 as far as that issue goes is simply that it is no long a boon to the Conservatives: they're increasingly seen as making a mess of things and opinion in general is no longer so hardline that radical immigration control policies that do not work are popular (which, in 2015, they kind of were). Actually they're now a drag.

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There appear to have been some procedural irregularities which might yet save him (we shall see), but I would definitely not get in a feud with Nick Brown if I were a councillor in Newcastle facing re-selection.

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He's also been barred from all bars on the Parliamentary Estate for six months...

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Is Coyne a particularly colorful figure, by Westminster standards?

If you mean 'is he a drunk?', then by this point I don't think even he would deny that.

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If journalists are going to write pieces on that mess, they should probably check to see what the Labour Party's rules on the matter are: as much of a horrifying joke as they often are, they are reasonably clear on the procedures regarded an MP suspended from the PLP and selection.

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I'm slightly loath to point this out because, given my well-known views, it could be interpreted as concern trolling even though it absolutely isn't, but the part that everyone avoids pointing out for what amounts to diplomatic reasons is that the people who would benefit the most from his retirement would be his own faction. Right now (and actually this was a problem even before his suspension) his political ghost is looming over everything and they can't even move sideways, let alone forwards: which they 'need' to because the strategy that they'd worked towards for decades is dead now.

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I have no idea how he got selected though.

Because he is a prominent local supporter of the Indian National Congress. You asked!

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In fairness, if people are being selected for their political affiliations in the old country, the Indian National Congress is about as inoffensive as it gets.

Absolutely, and that was basically the point as well: in a CLP which also contains significant CPI (via whatever is left of the IWA) and Sikh Nationalist elements (some of the latter o/c stormed out and defected to the Tories when their man was not selected; this did not work out well for them in the end) a Congress Man works reasonably well as some sort of compromise of sorts. His predecessor was from a CPI background, though actually spent a few years in the early 1980s in the SDP. Not that that's necessarily entirely contradictory, as you know.

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Has anybody worked out that Ted Heath "joke" from Rachel Reeves yet?

Probably version one was 'Anthony Barber' but it got changed to the PM of the day because who remembers who he was now?

(though overall, it was a strong performance - as with her post-Budget one in the autumn)

She's clearly had voice-coaching and it has helped a lot. That's a good thing - there's no shame in learning vocal projection, it isn't as if it comes naturally.

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Police raid at Unite's HQ.

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Police raid at Unite's HQ.

Corruption or something else?

There have been all sorts of rumours of the first for some time.

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So we've had confirmation of what this is all about: 'bribery, fraud and money laundering'. This is rather major. We should have a clearer picture soon as arrests are apparently imminent.

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On the other end of the TU spectrum the NEU conference made news for a debate over Ukraine and heckling the Labour Shadow Education Sec over Ofsted.

Specifically for saying that OFSTED in its present form is a disaster and that a total overhaul of it would be a priority for a Labour government. You might think that this is what delegates would like to hear, but anything short of 'abolition' is considered unacceptable by many, which is a bit silly as some form of inspectorate has existed since the early 19th century and as a return to LEA-led inspection would be a legal and administrative nightmare.* Amusingly the NEU's leadership (who seem to be open to the idea, even if they would like a new name for any national inspectorate) were embarrassed by the scenes and the delegates in question were reprimanded from the chair for 'acting like children'.

My father left the forerunner of the NEU in the 80s after one too many debates about the Contras and too few about the ILEA…

My Grandad left it earlier because it was full of (and I quote) 'communists', a term that he used quite broadly.

_{*As is often the case these days calls for the 'abolition' of something do not always mean the same thing.}

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https://twitter.com/Thelma_DWalker/status/1516780671309656070

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Wouldn't Balls and Starmer essentially come from the same faction?

No: Balls was part of the core group of advisors, MPs and advisors turned MPs that were once grouped around Gordon Brown and is still identifiable with the largest fragment of it now that it has broken up, while Starmer doesn't have a factional background having made his career and life outside politics until middle age: factionalism in the Labour Party being much more about networking and associations than views. Presently the interests of that part of the Labour Party and Starmer align, but that isn't quite the same as being the same, if that makes sense.

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Anyway, the apparent paradox of Ed Balls is that he was an unpopular politician but is now a well-liked public figure: there is an obvious parallel with Michael Portillo. And in both cases the answer to the mystery is that as politicians they were playing particular roles and suppressing large parts of their actual personalities (right up to Portillo's tragically ineffectual attempt to act straight in public, which convinced precisely no one). In the case of Balls it happens that he naturally has an ebullient and eccentric manner that is actually quite charming, but appears to have been convinced that this was not Serious enough for politics and, instead, attempted to come across as stern and stentorian; like a caricature of his patron, in fact.* Except that it actually came across as rigid and robotic. I suspect that if he ever were to go back to politics he would not return to this role-playing, much as Portillo did not when he returned to politics. But it should also be noted that Portillo's second political life was not very long and ended in frustration and rapid retirement.

_{*And it is also telling that he was much less successful as Shadow Chancellor than he was in his previous posts: very much attempted to play the part of Brown in the 90s and it didn't go very well.}

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Not sure that's how the law quite works.

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If it were to happen (and it's by far and away the least likely outcome, even if possible), then the list of people in the Shadow Cabinet who could step in is a long one. The mood in the Party would be one of quite extreme anger (people would be making comparisons to the Zinoviev Letter, the plots against Wilson and so on) and there would be a strong desire to get things sorted quickly - not sure if there would be much desire for a formal contest, which might mean hustings at a meeting of the PLP, the selection of a favoured choice and then great pressure to keep anyone else off the ballot.

But no matter what happens, this whole absurdity will likely increase the chances of a future Labour government picking up where Leveson was forced to close - but through legislation rather than a public enquiry. THIGMOO can be a vengeful entity.

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Isn't Streeting more economically interventionist than the average 'Blairite'? That could be useful in a hypothetical leadership election in the near future, given the times we are living in.

Actually that may be a fair assessment. Overall he still comes across as a bit slippery and too overly ambitious, though. His willingness to tell right wing hacks what they want to hear grates with many.

He has a lot of potential (people that insist otherwise mostly detest him for reasons relating to his 'career' in student politics long ago, when they too were young), but is a still bit callow. There's a young man in a hurry vibe and that rubs people up the wrong way as well.

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It was a pretty weak speech but it’s hard to tell how much of it is just events and also the Queens Speech being a weird Parliamentary day.

On the one hand, yes, not his best work, on the other, well, he got on the news saying that the government isn't doing enough to help with the cost of living crisis...