Chris Whiteside's Blog

I was rather disappointed to see that the link I posted to Vivaldi's Concerto for four Violins on 21st February as part of my "music to relax after campaigning" series no longer works. So here is another recording of the same piece. (I will see if I can replace the dead link on the original post with a third recording.)

As I have already posted, if the UK wants to have any influence over Donald Trump, it is far more important to be respected by him than to be liked. He made very clear in his book "The Art of the Deal" that he respects people who stand up to him. (That, incidentally, is one of several reasons why appointing Nigel Farage as British Ambassador to Washington at Trump's suggestion would have been an incredibly silly thing to do.) There are plenty of people both in America and in the rest of the world, and on both the right and the left of politics, who regard President Trump's executive order regarding travel, as, in the words of a good article on the CAPX site, " a colossal own goal ." Those who have criticised it include fellow Republicans such as Senator Ben Sasse and former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger who called aspects of its implementation “crazy.” “I think that the real problem is that it was vetted badly,” said Schwarzenegger. “I

Debate has begun on the bill giving the government the authority to trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty and thereby implement the referendum decision to take the UK out of the European Union. If Britain is to remain any sort of functioning democracy this has to go through, and it will. The credibility of our claim to be a country in whose government rests on the consent of the governed would be blown to bits if, after parliament voted six to one to call a referendum on EU membership, the government promised to implement what the referendum decided and more British people voted to leave than have ever voted in an election or referendum for any other party or cause, politicians were to fail to implement the majority decision. I gather from several sources such as Conservative Home that Kenneth Clarke delivered a speech which even those who totally disagreed with him thought was brilliant . But he will probably be the only Conservative who votes against triggering article 50.

"It's 2017 and liberalism is dead" Title of an interesting short speech by Rod Liddle (2 minutes and 19 seconds). You can watch and listen to the whole thing on the Newsnight site by following the link below: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/c/uk-politics-38802487/38802487

Many Lib/Dems have been in "stop the world, I want to get off" mode since 23rd June last year. One of the few who recognises that the "Remain" side lost the vote and we have to move on is Ben Andrew who has written an article on a Lib/Dem site here urging his fellow party members to stop peddling " Remainer myths and post-truth politics." Here are some extracts: He points out that the idea that another referendum today would produce a remain vote " is a fantasy ." " Poll   after   poll  after   poll  has shown that Regrexit doesn’t exist – that no more Leavers than Remainers have changed their mind in the aftermath of the referendum." "And even if Regrexit does exist in a few polls – is it even relevant? Do we reverse election results if people regret them a few months down the line? Would we accept the same argument if Remain had won, and people wished they had voted for leave? Of course not. These arguments are ridicul

In the past few days two things have been done by the governments of major powers which I have a lot of concerns about. I won't bother linking to the story of Donald Trump's executive order about immigration from seven countries as nobody reading this can possibly be unaware of it. A million people have signed a petition to block him from making a state visit to Britain as a result. But did you know that Russia's equivalent of the House of Commons, the Duma, has just voted by 380 to 3 to make domestic violence legal ? When I first read on Twitter that this proposal was coming forward I wondered if it was a joke or fake news but the progress of this bill has been reported by a few serious news channels as   here in The Economist magazine . But not nearly as comprehensively as Trump's travel ban. But I spent some time looking for an -up=to-date account of the story on the BBC website and could not find one - the most recent they appear to have is this story dated

Hat tip to Guido Fawkes for pointing out the 27 MPs who voted for the bill to call the EU referendum but now say they will vote against the Article 50 bill to implement the result: Owen Smith, Geraint Davies, Thangam Debbonaire, Peter Kyle, Neil Coyle, Daniel Zeichner, Tulip Siddiq, David Lammy, Catherine West, Helen Hayes, Kerry McCarthy, Ben Bradshaw, Jim Dowd, Mike Gapes, Rupa Huq, Ian Murray, Karen Buck, Jeff Smith, Ann Coffey, Vicky Foxcroft, Louise Ellman, Stephen Timms, Tom Brake, Tim Farron, Mark Williams, Alistair Carmichael and Caroline Lucas [Source: Hansard ] These MPs are all Labour, Lib/Dem, or Green. The one Tory MP who has said he will vote against Article 50, Ken Clarke, did not vote for the referendum. The SNP, who for once have been consistent, didn't vote for the referendum either. Whatever else you may say about him Ken Clarke has always been consistent. The SNP were consistent on this issue, but the 27 MPs listed above have not. These people only appe

Most amusing ironic tweet from John Rentoul, chief political correspondent of the Independent: "The way the government is trying to railroad Brexit through parliament with only 69 debates so far is a disgrace ..." He showed a list of the debates which have taken place so far, and then linked to the Hose of Commons Library page with details of the Article 50 bill at: http://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/CBP-7884#fullreport

"We are in the most ludicrous, unreal, pretend, unreal b******* position as an opposition" This quote is from Labour MP Lucy Powell, who is a former front-bencher and was Chief of Staff to Ed Miliband, in a WhatsApp message she accidentally sent this week to a wider circulation than extended. Still a circulation entirely consisting of Labour MPs but one of them evidently found the idea of leaking the story to the press irresistible. The most damning aspect of this is not the fact that a Labour MP had this very low opinion of her party's position - embarrassing though that is, you always get some extreme disagreements from time to time in any party. The fact that Lucy Powell apparently had not intended to be forthcoming with the public about what she really thought on the issue concerned is a more serious matter, though this is not the worst of the story either. The British constitution provides for something called "collective responsibility" which me

If anyone reading this is a member of any of the six Conservative associations in Cumbria, and has not yet returned their ballot papers for the vote on the proposed Cumbria-Wide Conservative Association, can I please urge you to find time before the post goes tomorrow to fill in your ballot paper and return it to Kendal Conservative Office in the pre-paid envelope provided. The ballot closes at noon on Wednesday 1st February 2017. The six constituency chairmen in Cumbria have issued a message to all members thanking the hundreds of people who have already voted and strongly encouraging those who have not yet done so to return their ballot papers and vote "Yes." The current Copeland By Election - in which all six associations in Cumbria have given fantastic support to the campaign - demonstrates what we can achieve if we work together. The proposed pilot for a Cumbria-Wide association will help us to do that more effectively. For any party activist from elsewhere in th

The British government has released today a statement about President Trump's Executive Order restricting travel to or through the USA from seven named countries. Full text of the statement is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/news/presidential-executive-order-on-inbound-migration-to-us but the key points are: "The Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has today held conversations with the US Government and as a result we can clarify that: The Presidential executive order only applies to individuals travelling from one of the seven named countries. If you are travelling to the US from anywhere other than one of those countries (for instance, the UK) the executive order does not apply to you and you will experience no extra checks regardless of your nationality or your place of birth. If you are a UK national who happens to be travelling from one of those countries to the US, then the order does not apply to you – even if you were born in one of those countries.

We don't often get snow on the ground in Whitehaven. My family will have lived in the town for twelve years this year, and I think the number of snowfalls which have settled in all that time is still well inside single figures. However, there was one this morning. with a thin layer of snow and ice everywhere at dawn including on footpaths and roads. Most of the ice, particularly on roads and paths, ahs now melted but there is still some about, so take care if you are out and about in Cumbria today.

I agree with the concerns expressed by Republican Senator Ben Sasse in my quote of the day about the Travel order signed by President Trump and with the concerns expressed by Communities Secretary Savid Javid. It is important that we use diplomatic and other channels to express those concerned to the US administration. One protest, however, that I will not be signing, is the petition to ban President Trump from making a state visit to the UK. The people signing this want to ban him from coming to our country as a protest against him banning people from coming to his country. Have they really thought through how silly that sounds?

Today the Christian church celebrates the feast of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple. This lovely anthem was written by the composer Eccard for this festival: it is also sometimes sung at Epiphany. (The "Nunc Dimittis" commemorates the same event.) I previously posted one recording of the beautiful piece at Epiphany three weeks ago: here is another performance, a recording sung by the choir of King's College Cambridge.

Republican Senator Ben Sasse takes a very balanced and sensible view on the Trump travel ban:

I spent most of today in Millom organising campaigning for the Copeland by-election. Despite the rain we managed to get a lot done to support the excellent Conservative candidate Trudy Harrison (left in this picture and centre in the first Egremont and Whitehaven photograph below: Thanks to our kind and helpful hosts at Millom Conservative club, and thanks to those who helped, both those from Copeland constituency and those who came to help us from elsewhere - today in Millom we were particularly grateful for help from Barrow Conservatives. Millom was one of three campaign centres today: here are some of the people who helped us campaign in the Millom area: And here are some of the people who helped us campaign in the Keswick area: And some of the people who helped us campaign in  Whitehaven and Egremont: including a strong contingent of Scottish tories led by Ruth Davidson:   Overall we had about a hundred people out today despite the rai

Sir Patrick McLoughlin, Chairman of the Conservative Party, writes as follows: Special January Members' bulletin   "We may only be a few weeks into 2017, but we are already getting on with the important work of governing our country and delivering on the key commitments that we have made to the British people.   NEGOTIATING OBJECTIVES FOR BREXIT             In a major speech on the United Kingdom’s decision to leave the European Union last week, the Prime Minister outlined the Government’s 12 negotiating objectives. You can watch the Prime Minister’s full speech here.              If you haven't already,  please let us know what you think of our plan.   ACTION ON MENTAL HEALTH Earlier in the month the Prime Minister set out a package of reforms to improve mental health support at every stage of a person’s life, not just in our hospitals, but in our classrooms, at work and in our communities

"Years ago we had an aircraft missile called the Seaslug missile and we fired one into Wales." "Those sort of things happen but you don't go and talk to the prime minister about that, unless their constituency happens to be there." (Labour peer Admiral Lord West giving evidence to the Commons Defence Committee on Tuesday. as reported It is believed he was referring to a missile test incident in Cardigan Bay in 1958, when a missile crashed into a hillside.) The point of this quote is that if you want to be confident that your military systems are working properly, like anything else, you have to check them or test them. Obviously you do test fire missiles without a live warhead and you test weapons well away from innocent people - so for example the Eskmeals MoD firing range in Copeland has big signs on the perimeter warning people to keep out. You test things to the limit and it's the tests where things don't work perfectly that enable

As I posted this morning, today is Holocaust Memorial Day. There are two opposite errors we can make in respect of ghastly events like the Nazi Holocaust or indeed any other genocide. One is to remember in a way which fuels the cycle of hate: the other is to try to forget. I firmly believe that if we insist that terrible crimes like Hitler's "final solution" must never be forgotten similar events are less likely to recur - provided we also remember that there are good and bad people in any race or other category of human beings and that seeking revenge for perceived past wrongs not against individuals but against entire races was the main cause of the catastrophe. Those who died at the hands of the Nazis, and the victims of every other genocide, should be remembered not as symbols or as part of a collective group, but as individual human beings, each of whose deaths cost the world a unique and precious life, snuffed out by hatred. There is an excellent piece in

Tam Dalyell, who was MP for West Lothian and then Linlithgow for a combined period of 43 years and ultimately became father of the House of Commons has died at the age of 84. He was a man of the most extraordinary contradictions who will probably best be remembered for first posting what became known as the "West Lothian Question" about devolution, of which he was a passionate opponent. I totally disagree with his views on a great many issues, and it is only the wish to obey my own rules about obituary posts which prevents me from expressing that thought in intemperate language. However, few even among his worst enemies would deny that he combined great independence of mind with enormous moral courage and a great deal of integrity. His views were his own, never fitting neatly into any category, and nothing in the world could stop him expressing them. I suspect his parliamentary colleagues, those like him who sat on the Labour benches or those who were members of any

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has confirmed that the UK economy grew by 0.6% in the final quarter of 2016, for the third quarter in a row, making Britain's growth the fastest in the G7. The economy grew by 0.6% in the October-to-December period, the same rate as in the previous two quarters, according to an initial estimate from the Office for National Statistics. The figure indicates that the feared economic slowdown following the Brexit vote has not materialised. For 2016 as whole, the economy grew by 2%, down from 2.2% in 2015. "Strong consumer spending supported the expansion of the dominant services sector," said ONS statistician Darren Morgan. "Although manufacturing bounced back from a weaker third quarter - both it and construction remained broadly unchanged over the year as a whole."

Today is the 72nd anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz and is commemorated in Britain and many other nations as Holocaust Memorial Day, when we remember all victims of genocide. It seems appropriate therefore that today's quote of the day should be from one of the millions of innocent victims of the Nazi Holocaust. "In the long run, the sharpest weapon of all is a kind and gentle spirit." ( Anne Frank )

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has refused give any commitment or indication whether if he supports the creation of a new nuclear power station at Moorside in west Cumbria. In an interview with  ITV Border's Dan Hewitt ahead of the Copeland by-election, the Labour leader said that he recognised that nuclear facilities would exist for a long time as part of the future energy mix, but he would not commit to the idea of any new development in the constituency. Asked repeatedly whether he would support a new power station at Moorside he would only indicate that reprocessing plants (like Sellafield) would have to exist "for as long as there is reprocessing going on" but declined to give a specific yes or no on whether he would back a new nuclear power station in the Copeland constituency, describing the question of whether Moorside is likely to be approved in "about 2018" as "a bit unclear." The nuclear industry is a major employer in West Cumbria. If N

Ahead of Holocaust Memorial Day 2017, Communities Secretary Sajid Javid has today (26 January 2017) announced £375,000 of new funding to further encourage the reporting and prevention of hate crime. The new package will be targeted at a range of existing organisations, working with faith and minority communities that have historically faced challenges in reporting hate crime. These include race and faith groups and those working at challenging the prejudice towards people from alternative subcultures. The extra support will build upon the wide reaching work the government is already doing to reduce hate crime, increase reporting and improve support for victims. It builds on the £1 million of support directed at young people announced as part of the government’s Hate Crime Action Plan last summer. Mr Javid was due to set out details of the new funding in a speech at The Anne Frank Trust Annual Lunch to mark Holocaust Memorial Day in London today, before hosting the UK Commem

The re-surfacing work on Coach Road, Whitehaven continues and the Eastern end of the road at the junctions with Back Corkickle and Station Road are still closed to vehicles. To make it easier for people to get from Mirehouse and Valley Park into the Town centre the County Council has temporarily made the northern half of Foxhouses Road two-way instead of one-way southbound, so please watch out for traffic coming out of Foxhouses Road if you are driving on Inkerman Terrace.

As last night was Burns Night, here is the top Burns Night joke of all time ... "A new English doctor is being shown around a Scottish hospital. The last ward he is taken to visit contains a number of patients who show no obvious signs of injury. He goes to examine the first man he sees, and the man proclaims: 'Fair fa' yer honest, sonsie face, Great chieftain e' the puddin' race! Aboon them a' ye tak your place,   painch tripe or thairm: Weel are ye wordy o' a grace   as lang's my arm.'   The Englishman, somewhat taken aback, goes to the next patient, and immediately the patient launches into: 'Some hae meat, and canna eat, And some wad eat that want it, But we hae meat and we can eat, And sae the Lord be thankit.'   This continues with the next patient, who proclaims: 'Wee sleekit cow'rin tim'rous beastie, O what a panic's in thy breastie! Thou need na start awa sae hasty,   wi' bickerin

T rudy Harrison has been selected as the Conservative parliamentary candidate for the Copeland by-election. Trudy, 40, lives in the village of Bootle with her husband Keith, a welder who works in the nuclear industry, and four daughters, who were all born at West Cumberland Hospital. She is a local champion with a track record of delivering for her community. Her commitment to her home area has seen more than £4 million invested there since 2010. As mother of  four teenage girls and having spent time working for Copeland Borough Council and at Sellafield, Trudy is passionate about the benefits of young people engaging in part-time work. In response to the threat of closure of her local primary school, Trudy led a campaign to breathe new life into her village for future generations. Commenting on her selection, Trudy Harrison said: “This important by-election is an opportunity for the people of Copeland to send a message that the referendum result must be respected. “Copeland

The government announced earlier this week a further £12.7 million of taxpayers' money for Cumbria through an allocation called "Growth Deal 3" (on top of £47.7m already secured in previous Growth Deal rounds), which could see 4,000 jobs created, 3,000 homes built and attract £100 million extra investment over the next 5 years. A substantial proportion of this money is coming to Copeland as the Board of Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnership, the county’s strategic economic body, has set out plans for five major investment programmes, including £5m for developments at Lillyhall North, £4.5m for improvements to Whitehaven Town Centre, and £1m for Carlisle Station Gateway and the Citadels. The investment programmes are as follows: Lillyhall North – £5,000,000 to develop the employment site, create and safeguard jobs and provide new workspace Whitehaven Town Centre – £4,500,000 investment for commercial office development Carlisle Station Gateway and the Citadels – £1,

Janan Ganesh has a good article in the FT here about how mainstream politicians should respond to the destructive kind of politics, which you can read here . A sample quote from the article: "Populists are at their weakest in the tedious matter of sound government. In a contest of gut values and group loyalties they have the confidence and the numbers. Why let them play at home?" 

"Better to be respected than liked" Extracts from an article in the "Bagehot" column of "The Economist" magazine on how Britain should deal with the Trump administration, which you can read in full here . "Mr Trump’s world is one of muscular conflicts of interest; brute, zero-sum tests of leverage, self-confidence and guile. Sycophancy and flattery may buy one a place in his court but the evidence suggests it comes at the cost of real influence. If he is solicitous towards Vladimir Putin it is not because the Russian president sucks up to him (in fact his public pronouncements have been cooly non-committal) but because he is a strongman who seems to get his way. Mr Trump admires that. If he is angry about China, he also commends its leaders’ canny policies. In other words, he respects those who stand up for their interests. This is the main message of “ The Art of the Deal ”: “ The worst thing you can possibly do in a deal is seem despera

Following the Supreme Court's ruling on the Article 50 challenge, the government has issued this statement. I made my view clear before the referendum that whatever the result was, the government should keep their promise to implement the democratic decision of the majority, and I stand by that. The difference between myself and those who want to try to stop Britain leaving the EU is not about Europe, it is about democracy. I strongly disagree with anyone who supported the challenge because they thought parliament should overturn the decision of the British people, but the people who brought the action had the right under the law to do so and the judges had the duty to rule, not on whether Britain should leave the EU or not but on what the law says about who has the authority to make that decision. I am entirely relaxed about the fact that the judges decided it is parliament, for two reasons. First, the whole point of the main argument made by people who voted leave w

C onservative Party Chairman Sir Patrick McLoughlin has urged the Labour Party to stand up for the people of Copeland and end their financial partnership with anti-nuclear company, Ecotricity. Following reports in the Sun  here , that Labour’s by-election campaign in Copeland is being bankrolled by an anti-nuclear energy firm, Patrick McLoughlin has written to both Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour candidate, Gillian Troughton. Writing separately to both, he urges them to reconsider the financial arrangement where the party receives £50 for every member that switches to Ecotricity, stating the deal ‘demonstrates a flagrant disregard for the people of Copeland’. Ecotricity has called for nuclear power plants to be closed in 2025. These plans would have devastating consequences for the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing complex and other civil nuclear facilities which employ 12,000 people in Copeland. They would also block the creation of Moorside Nuclear Power Plant which is planned to br

The Copeland by-election has now formally been called for Thursday 23rd February 2017. The notice of election which was published this morning can be read here . The full timetable is available here  and other information relating to the election on the Copeland Council website at http://www.copeland.gov.uk/content/parliamentary-election-2017 . I am tempted to say "Let battle commence!" Of course we have been working hard to campaign in the seat for weeks but now the campaign proper, what is known in electoral terms as the "short campaign" can finally get under way over the next 48 hours.

The Prime Minister brought the cabinet to the North West today, and made a speech outlining her new Industrial Strategy. The government will be "stepping up to a new, active role", Mrs May said. The plan was published in a green paper as she held her first regional cabinet meeting in the north-west of England. Broadband, transport and energy are highlighted in a bid to "align central government infrastructure investment with local growth priorities". The 10-point plan involves: Investing in science, research and innovation Developing skills Upgrading infrastructure Supporting business to start and grow Improving government procurement Encouraging trade and inward investment Delivering affordable energy and clean growth Cultivating world-leading sectors Driving growth across the whole country Creating the right institutions to bring together sectors and places "Underpinning this strategy is a new approach to government, not just stepping ba

During a trip to the North West today Theresa May will announce that an additional £170 million of taxpayer's money will be made available for Technical education. This new injection of cash into technical education forms part of her plan for a new industrial strategy for the UK Prime Minister Theresa May will launch the £170m in new funding when she unveils a Green Paper consultation on the industrial strategy during a trip to the North West of England on Monday. We are having trouble showing you adverts on this page, which may be a result of ad blocker software being installed on your device. As City A.M. relies on advertising to fund its journalism, please disable any ad blockers from running on cityam.com , then reload the page to see the rest of this content. More info here . The money will be used to provide training for the “high-paid, high-skilled jobs of the future,” she will emphasise, while also aiming at tackling regional differences in performance.

Coach Road in Whitehaven will be closed for repairs for four days from today (23rd January 2017). This is likely to cause significant traffic disruption in the town particularly to those trying to get from the town centre to the Valley Park and Mirehouse areas or vice versa and there may also be knock-on effects on Inkerman Terrace and Low Road. If you have to drive through Whitehaven this week, it would probably be a good idea to allow a little longer for your journey. A signed diversion route will be in operation and traffic marshals will be on site during working hours to advise and assist with any access requirements. Cumbria Highways have said that access for pedestrians and dismounted cyclists will be maintained throughout.   Anyone with enquiries about the work should call the Cumbria Highways Hotline on 0300 3032992.

After the inauguration of the 45th President of the USA, a quote from one of the most successful US presidents of my lifetime, Ronald Reagan:

I don't care who is the target, and I don't care who does it; attacking someone through their children is out of order. Any decision which a politician has made while carrying out the functions of a public office is a legitimate target. If you don't agree with a politician's views, it's legitimate to say so. If you think they have failed to declare a conflict of interest which might affect how they do their job, it is fair to mention that too. Going after someone's family or private life, unless you can clearly show that they have misused their position (putting a family member on the taxpayer-funded payroll for a job they are not actually doing, for instance) is another matter. And going after the children of political candidates for things which have no relevance to any political stance or decision by their parents is quite simply wrong and unacceptable. Just in case anyone reading this is putting two and two together and making fourteen, the "sto

This is the August 2014 speech in which Jeremy Corbyn, now leader of the Labour party, said that NATO should have shut up shop and called on NATO to "Give up, go home and go away." (Quote about 150 seconds into this clip) Anyone thinking of voting Labour should ask themselves whether it is credible to suggest that Britain could work with NATO allies for our mutual defence if this man were Prime Minister.

Today's Old Testament lesson in the Anglican lectionary, which I read at St James's Whitehaven this morning, is Isaiah chapter 9, verses one to four, which includes a prophecy that the light would shine on people who had walked in darkness. Here is Handel's setting of those words from his oratorio, "Messiah."

For obvious reasons most of my attention at the moment is on issues affecting Copeland but wises citizens of a modern democracy should not take their eyes off the wider world. An extradition case in which Turkey is seeking the return of eight search-and-rescue airmen from Greece on the basis of the flimsiest imaginable charges of treason is an example of the international pressures on the principles of democracy and the rule of law. If you have a few minutes to do so, I strongly recommending reading Nick Cohen's article about this in today's Observer, available on the net with no paywall at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/22/fate-eight-turkish-airmen-acid-test-for-democracy

The election of a President for the United States of America is a decision for the citizens of that country, not for us. If I had been a US citizen, I would not have voted for Donald J Trump. But he won legally under the rules, and it is unlikely that anything the Russians may or may not have done created that situation. Which makes him the duly elected leader of our most important ally and one of our most important trading partners. We do not have to like him but Britain does have to work with him for as long as he holds that office. We need good relationship with the United States of America, which are in the interests of the people of both Britain and the USA. For the British government to try to work with the US administration is not "sucking up to" Trump, it is protecting British interests.

Many thanks to all those who came to support Copeland Conservatives today whether from within the constituency, other parts of Cumbria and the North West, or from much further afield. We had four ministers, fourteen MPs in total, well over a hundred activists campaigning across Copeland in lovely weather in one of the most beautiful constituencies in the country. From Keswick ... to Egremont ... to Millom ... and around the constituency ... we had a great day's campaigning, which lived up to the name of Super Saturday. This election is going to be close. Stories planted in the press by Labour sources to the effect that their canvass returns suggest that they are going to lose and might even come fourth should not be taken entirely at face value. These briefings partly reflect expectations management and partly a civil war in the Labour party between the Corbyn/Momentum faction and their bitter enemies, with each faction trying to take