Co-conspirators will be astonished to learn Sir Keir still hasn’t learnt the lessons from Labour’s 2019 election defeat. At the end of last month, the party selected Daniel Francis to fight the seat that, as well as giving James Brokenshire a 18,952 majority, voted 62.4% to leave in 2016. It therefore suggests something about the party’s mindset that means they’re happy standing a candidate who believes those who voted for Brexit fell for “Goebbels” style propaganda. Twitter posts uncovered by Guido also show Francis sharing a tweet from Alastair Campbell claiming “the freedom Britain needs is freedom from a Nasty Brexit Lie Machine”

In less inflammatory – yet predictable views – Francis voiced agreement with both Donald Tusk’s view that Brexit “is a lose-lose situation”, and Starmer’s own 2019 post that “the only way to break the Brexit impasse is to go back to the public”. Still, Guido’s unsurprised given Labour recently announced the successful applicants to their future candidates programme, almost all of whom were radical, remainer centrists…