Yum Yum?

Some of us have been banging on for years about Peter Mandelson and Jeffrey Epstein, but now that it is all coming out, or at least enough of it is, then which other British politician in the same position would not be required to resign all offices held? Who else would be permitted to retain membership of any political party, never mind the governing one? Every aspirant to the Labour Deputy Leadership should be asked about this case. As should the Prime Minister at noon today.

It all seems to be shaping up for Bridget Phillipson. While her claims of childhood deprivation are nowhere near as far-fetched as Wes Streeting's, they do cry out for interrogation. Labour came to power when she was 13. Working for a charity founded by her mother was Phillipson's only job until she entered Parliament at the age of 26. If her council house had no heating upstairs, then why was that matter not addressed by her Labour council? Her mother was on it.

Still, at least we are some way to solving the mystery of the imposition of VAT on school fees. Is that intended as a permanent means of raising slightly less than two per cent of the education budget, or as a device for closing down commercial schools? It cannot be both. But might it be neither? Might the real motivation be Phillipson's ambition, and not merely to a Deputyship? How about that for a Third Way?

Phillipson could promise the TUC, which for some reason she was the Cabinet Minister sent to address, only that there would be no backsliding from the already very watered down Employment Rights Bill, and even then no one in that room or anywhere else took her word for it. Just as, Stamp Duty aside, Angela Rayner was a Housing Minister who went nowhere near far enough but who did at least do some good, so the same was true of her record on workers' rights. But even that is over now. To secure disaffiliation from the Labour Party and then to build what came next, join Unite Community here.