Dominic Cummings has provided his blog fans with the solution to Labour’s woes: replace “dud” Sir Keir with “a Midlands* woman who can focus on the public and build a team” – claiming that while he “[doesn’t] know much about Labour MPs … Lisa Nandy seems the closest fit”. Jess Phillips must be furious.

Outlining his rationale in an 11,984 word post today (only 300 fewer than Starmer’s own magnum opus), Cummings writes:

“The media is mainly Labour supporting and most of them HATE Boris. If you ditch Starmer now and replace him with a woman, you will catch a powerful surge of energy from the media. And the country will pay attention. If she hits the ground running, the polls will shift and the whole game will change.”

“Remember how the media ferociously kicked Major to pieces? The will happen again if they can get behind a Labour woman who is competitive and people feel a historic tide.”

Those of us who have followed Lisa Nandy‘s career closely will be surprised by Cummings’ enthusiasm. He all but offered to be her campaign manager…

Cummings adds that Starmer is a “dead player” and has “totally failed to define himself as standing for anything”. According to Cummings, the answer is to “bin him” and find a team that focuses entirely on crime and the economy. Some decent ideas, although as usual, an editor would have helped him express them more succinctly…

*Many have already commented that Wigan isn’t in the Midlands. Cummings says “Coming from Durham I think of middle and north a bit different, everything around there seems ‘middle’ to me.”