10 of Starmer’s frontbenchers resigned last night to vote in favour of a ceasefire in a symbolic vote organised by the SNP. The King’s Speech amendment calling for “all parties to agree to an immediate ceasefire” was defeated by a majority of 168. Performative, pointless…

Labour’s front bench resignations were:

• Shadow Minister for Domestic Violence and Safeguarding Jess Phillips.
• Shadow Minister for Crime Reduction Naz Shah.
• Shadow Minister for Devolution and the English Regions Paula Barker.
• Shadow Minister for Local Government and Faith Sarah Owen.
• Shadow Minister for Exports Afzal Khan.
• Shadow Minister for Veterans Rachel Hopkins.
• Shadow Solicitor General for England and Wales Andy Slaughter.
• Shadow equalities minister Yasmin Qureshi.
• Shadow treasury PPS Dan Carden.
• PPS to Angela Rayner Mary Foy.

A total of 56 Labour MPs – over a quarter – rebelled. Starmer’s statement reiterated his support for Israel and added – “I regret that some colleagues felt unable to support the position tonight“. John Healey said this morning that Labour is “acting in these very difficult circumstances as if we were in government“. Oh dear…

Shadow treasury minister Dan Carden has offered his resignation to Keir Starmer ahead of voting against the Covert Human Intelligence Sources (CHIS) Bill this evening, therein breaking the Labour Whip. Will the last Corbynista to leave the shadow cabinet please turn on the lights…

Read Carden’s resignation letter in full:

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Written parliamentary questions aren’t often the source of good political theatre, though recently Minister for the Constitution Chloe Smith cleverly rebuffed a question from Dan Carden on the government’s introduction of election voter ID. Carden asked what effect the introduction of voter ID will have on “the ability of (a) Black, (b) Asian and (c) minority ethnic people to vote.” Smith retorted by pointing out:

“Photo identification has been required in Northern Ireland since 2003, when introduced by the last Labour Government. Labour Ministers told Parliament: “The measures will tackle electoral abuse effectively without disadvantaging honest voters…. [ensuring that] no one is disfranchised because of them ”… If we believed that thousands of voters would not be able to vote because of this measure, we would not be introducing it at this time”. There has been no adverse effect on turnout or participation by such groups since then.

Chloe Smith also pointed out Labour’s stonking hypocrisy in their opposition to voter ID, while at the same time requiring identification from members to attend party meetings and to join:

“ID is already requested normally and reasonably in many areas of life, including by many constituency Labour parties, who require voter identification to vote in Labour Party selection meetings. The Labour Party’s NEC also mandates two forms of ID for any members joining an association which is in special measures.”

Guido reckons that’s game set and match to Chloe there…

Labour’s position on taxing people’s homes and savings plunged further into chaos last night as Shadow Treasury Minister Dan Carden put out a statement decrying the idea that Labour has backtracked from their wealth tax plans as “false”. This denial came just a day after Labour first u-turned on their wealth tax proposals…

“This is false. Labour is clear that the cost of the crisis should be borne by those with the broadest shoulders. We are following very closely the academic research under way by LSE Inequalities, CAGE Warwick and others on how a UK wealth tax would work.”

From mini-budget day until last night Labour had been at pains to imply it did not want to tax people out of the economic crisis, preferring instead to grow the economy to deal with debt, a surprisingly age-old traditional Tory message that came after Labour’s wealth tax proposals were badly received. Now it seems like not everyone in the Treasury team got the memo, with serious shadow treasury work going into the plans…