Drop The DRIP

Dennis Skinner told the Durham Miners' Gala that he would be voting against it.

That means that his band of brethren will be doing likewise, not because they are his meek followers, but because he is their recognised representative in, to and by the media.

Tom Watson was there in the crowd (as was Jeremy Paxman, of all people), and he tweeted it instantly.

Although of course he forswears any inside knowledge, John McTernan's Twitter account has made it quite clear that the Blairites are not happy, either.

Are they doing this because they hate Ed Miliband? I don't care if they are, so long as they do it.

Is the Skinner Tendency doing this as revenge for his removal from the National Executive Committee? No, they have consistently voted against this kind of thing in the past. But again, I wouldn't care if they were, so long as they did it.

The organic Constitution has consistently proved the only means to the ends of the Labour Movement, with both its parliamentary and its municipal aspects providing the democracy in social democracy, and with their erosion having been bound up inseparably with its.

Integral to that organic Constitution has always been a certain grit in the oyster, a very British trait of built-in self-criticism.

That is the parliamentary and extraparliamentary activity of Radicals and republicans, of populists and pacifists, including Tory populists and even, at least since the end of Empire, including a certain school of de facto Tory pacifists, profoundly suspicious of overseas adventures and entanglements.

The Grits won over Syria. From Skinner to Sir Edward Leigh, they have held the line on Ukraine.

They won over Tony Blair's scheme to bang people up for months on end without even so much as charging them with anything.

On Monday, it will be time for them to win again. Given enough time, they would have done.

That is why they have not been given enough time.

David Cameron, repeatedly in contempt of court, is also in contempt of Parliament.