Soap and Lather

Larry Sanders is not going to win Witney. But at least he is going to lose fair and square.

His brother was robbed by a Democratic National Committee that was as Jim Crow as ever, and which was therefore determined to nominate the woman who had originated the birtherism that even Donald Trump has now disavowed.

As to the other by-election, although very few people have appeared in all three of EastEnders, Emmerdale and Coronation Street, how is that, in itself, a qualification to be a Member of Parliament?

Do we know anything else about Tracy Brabin? Is there anything else to know about Tracy Brabin?

Is she moderate enough to have opposed from the start Tony Blair's extremist privatisation of England's public services in general and NHS in particular (the root cause of its current financial woes), as well as his continuation of the previous Conservative Government's extremist assaults on civil liberties, including the extremist evisceration both of the House of Commons and of local government continuously since 1979?

Is she moderate enough to have opposed the extremist and abandoned austerity programme of the sacked extremist, George Osborne, unlike the Liberal Democrats until May 2015, unlike the Labour front bench until September 2015, unlike the Conservative Party until July 2016, and unlike 172 Labour MPs to this day?

Is she moderate enough to have opposed every extremist military intervention of the last 20 years, unlike the Liberal Democrats on all but one occasion, unlike the Conservative front bench and almost all Conservative MPs on each and every occasion, unlike the Labour front bench on every occasion until Jeremy Corbyn became Leader, and unlike one third of Labour MPs even after that?

Is she moderate enough to accept the outcome of the EU referendum (whatever may or may not result from it in practice), like most Labour Party members, but unlike most Labour MPs, extremists that they are?

And is she moderate enough to support Theresa May on workers' representation, on the restriction of pay disparities, and on the Orgreave Inquiry that is inevitable now that the idea has been floated, all of which are opposed by the extremists who massively predominate in the Parliamentary Labour Party?

If not, then the squalid free pass that has been given to Labour at Batley and Spen by the Conservatives, by the Liberal Democrats, by the Greens and by UKIP ought to be turned to the advantage of such a moderate candidate from outside the Labour Party.