Grab your popcorn: the Labour General Secretary race is already descending into bitter briefing and attacks from Corbynistas on Momentum’s Jon Lansman. Skwawkbox, the pro-Corbyn website which is regularly briefed by the Leader’s Office, has attacked Lansman’s pitch as “confusing” and called on him to explain why he is standing against a “widely-supported female applicant” (Jennie Formby, Lansman’s opponent, is the choice of the Leader’s Office.) Skwawkbox go on to say they “understand that Jon Lansman has spent the last twenty-four hours or so trying to persuade a female former employee of Jeremy Corbyn to stand. His announcement today may be a signal that he was unsuccessful”. Who could possibly have been behind that anti-Lansman briefing?

This from McDonnell last night was hardly subtle:

I’m delighted @JennieUnite is standing for @UKLabour General Secretary. She’s a fantastic organiser and fighter for justice who we’ve campaigned with for years. She’s the person with the skills to deliver Jeremy’s vision of a members-led mass party to get him into Downing St.

— John McDonnell MP (@johnmcdonnellMP) March 1, 2018

Meanwhile Labour Against the Witchhunt, the mental group led by Jackie Walker which tries to get anti-Semites let back into the party, has launched a vicious attack on Lansman and endorsed Formby. They say Lansman “lacks the democratic credentials to become the kind of general secretary that the Labour Party now needs” and “We believe that Unite’s Jennie Formby would be the best choice for general secretary”. Surely nothing to do with Lansman taking exception to Walker’s awful anti-Semitism and removing her as vice-chair of Momentum. How does Formby feel about having these people on her side?