Security Compromised?

"At no point was prison security compromised" when 86 people just walked in? Whose Department could possibly say such a ridiculous thing? Do you really need to ask?

Yesterday, David Lammy was moaning to Nick Robinson that juries did not give reasons for their verdicts. Yes, they do. The reason for a guilty verdict is that the Prosecution had proved its case to the threshold for a criminal conviction, while the reason for a verdict of not guilty is that it had not. That threshold ought, by Statute, to be "beyond reasonable doubt", but no one expects Lammy to introduce that. Who would? That is not a rhetorical question.

Lammy is also the Deputy Prime Minister, which must be as far as he could possibly go. Presumably apart from the incumbent, but no one would bet on that, the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party must be expected to refuse to endorse any candidate at the next General Election who aspired to be Prime Minister, having declared today that that was an absolute bar. At Gorton and Denton, the circus is well and truly rolling into town. Rumour has it that Reform UK will be fielding Simon Danczuk, whom it last stood for Parliament in his own former constituency. He came sixth.

As for Labour, the rules are different for Southerners. Damien Egan was the directly elected Mayor of Lewisham, elected in 2018 and re-elected in 2022, yet in 2024 he resigned merely to contest the Kingswood by-election, where he had grown up but which was well over 100 miles away. Thankfully for him, he won it. But filling his mayoralty midterm cost the good burghers of Lewisham £635,000. The NEC was fine with that. Kingswood has been abolished, so Egan now sits for Bristol North East, which is essentially the successor seat. His husband is Yossi Felberbaum, a recruiter for the IDF's Unit 8200, an infamous collector of intelligence for blackmail and for secret evidence. Has this person been issued with a parliamentary pass?

Bringing us to the funniest whisper of all, that Labour's candidate at Gorton and Denton might be Tony Blair. No, of course not. But you have to admit that it is amusing. Blair is perfectly eligible. As well as being a member both of the Executive Board of Donald Trump's Board of Peace, and of its Gaza Executive Board, Blair remains a member of the Labour Party. Why do you? Or even if you do not, if you still identify as a Blairite, then you are endorsing both Trump's monsterplan for his Proprietary Colony of Gaza, and his deployment of the USS Abraham Lincoln to begin the invasion of Iran in support of whichever of Reza Pahlavi, the MEK terrorists, or the present regime, had best guaranteed him personal control over the oil and gas. That was what he did in Venezuela, where the regime has not changed at all, and where Trump has been entirely open about his motivation. That is Blairism now. It pretty much always was.