Questionable

It is Wednesday afternoon again, so certain websites are showing the same CCHQ posts as every week, complete with the on-cue comments from CCHQ interns. But you do realise, don’t you, that almost no one watches PMQs? It has absolutely nothing to do with serious politics, being held purely for the entertainment of the Press Gallery. And it is held at the very middle point of the working week. For those, that is, who are still fortunate enough to have jobs.

A few polls putting the other side level or slightly ahead, after a very unusual week and for the first time this year. Plus arguably a lacklustre performance at a parliamentary event which hardly anyone watches. So what? We know the answer to that one: under no circumstance must there be a viable non-Blairite option at a General Election. The removal of IDS, entirely on television, made no difference to the 2005 Election from his party’s point of view. But that was never what it was about.

David Miliband’s surname is the only thing that prevents the expulsion of him and of his tiny but noisy party within the party. It should protect him and them no longer. A motion or amendment on, say, the EU, or Iran, should be enough to smoke them out.