Sharp Intake

Ponder that the Bank Holiday rail strike, which I very much hope will not go ahead because a settlement will be reached, would be entirely within the new laws proposed by the Government.

Although it is affiliated to the Labour Representation Committee, and is thus constitutionally committed to the election of a Labour Government, the RMT has not been affiliated to the Labour Party for some years.

But the NUM still is.

The 2010 intake was the most left-wing in years and years. Until the 2015 intake.

The former's leading left-wing voice other than the previously elected John Cryer, Ian Lavery, who was formerly President of the NUM, has joined Harry Leslie Smith in endorsing Andy Burnham. Almost certainly, then, there will be no rival candidate of the Left.

Lavery's constituency neighbour as half of the MPs for England's second most rural county, Ronnie Campbell, nominated Burnham last time after John McDonnell, whom they had both joined Kate Hoey and Frank Field in supporting, had failed to secure enough nominations because of the intervention of Dianne Abbott.

The English constituency most remote from Westminster, Jamie Reed's Copeland, is also a Labour citadel.

Smith, who seems to have taken over the Patron Saint mantle of a Tony Benn who was in fact his junior, has also endorsed Tom Watson.

Tom is campaigning hard for the campaigning role of Deputy Leader. No one else is bothering to do so.

With Burnham said to have even as many as 70 nominations, it looks as if both the Leadership and the Deputy Leadership are heading the way of the men who should have had them years ago.