Be Confident In This

Here are two key lessons from yesterday's No Confidence debate.

First, there is no vacancy for the position of Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, nor will there be any such vacancy in the foreseeable future, and Jeremy Corbyn wanted to make that clear beyond doubt.

And secondly, Michael Gove wants to be the next Leader of the Conservative Party when, as she has undertaken to do, Theresa May gives up before the next General Election, while she in turn wants to be succeeded by him, even though he barely mentioned her yesterday.

Corbyn is committed to a balance between the Left and the traditional Labour Right, of which Tom Watson is the personification.

And Gove's strategy is on the cusp of paying off after all, despite the serious blow that it received when, against his expectations, Leave won the referendum.

He appeared to back Leave when no one really believed that he did, and when he expected that Remain would win, enabling him, having won certain Brownie points, to shrug his shoulders and get back to business as usual.

But then, unlike Boris Johnson who had tried the same trick, he loyally swung behind the Prime Minister's deal, thereby winning him Brownie points on that side, too.

And yesterday, it was he whom she asked to sum up for the Government in the debate on a Confidence Motion that it was bound to win, when no Conservative MP, no matter how opposed to the deal, so much as abstained.

Just as it was Watson whom Corbyn asked to sum up before every Labour MP, no matter how anti-Corbyn and including all those who had backed the deal the night before, followed them both into the Division Lobby.

The Government was reduced to crowing about the ludicrous John Woodcock, something that serious people leave to Woodcock himself.

Alas, his constituents, some of them in a ward with 48 per cent child poverty, are unlikely to be given the chance to pass judgement on him as they tuck into the 7,251 three-day emergency food packs that were given out last year by Barrow Foodbank.

By the way, so much for Trident and "jobs" there.

A proper Labour candidate is going to take Barrow and Furness next time. More broadly, however, another hung Parliament is coming, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it.

It has become a local commonplace that I am on 30-30-30 with Labour and the Conservatives here at North West Durham, so that any one of us could be the First Past the Post.

I will stand for this seat, if I can raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.