There’s still no love lost between Liz Kendall and Jeremy Corbyn. Both appeared on Robert Peston’s ITV show last night, and clearly the wounds of 2019 haven’t yet healed for Liz Kendall, who tore into Corbyn for the scale of Labour’s defeat and his total failure to root out antisemitism within the party. As usual for the absolute boy, he repeatedly claimed the problem had been “grossly exaggerated”  and refused to apologise. “He only has himself to blame”, Kendal seethed…

Kendall then proceeded to list all positive ways Sir Keir has improved Labour since Corbyn left, claiming:

“I am proud that Keir Starmer has taken firm action on this issue since he became leader of the Labour Party, and that he has changed the Labour Party since Jeremy Corbyn was leader. That he said that we love our country, that we’re proud of our armed forced, we stand up for NATO… people who think that the problem was exaggerated are actually part of the problem themselves…”

Corbyn also vowed to return as the MP for Islington North after the next election – “1000%” chance, apparently. Stone-faced, Kendall replied ,“I might put it down the other end of the scale.” Ouch.

Liz Truss has had the innovative gumption to learn from past campaigns, even reaching across party lines to do so. Liz’s website, Lizforleader.co.uk, is the same web address used by Liz Kendall in 2015, Lizforleader.co.uk. Truss re-registered the domain on June 8^th, 2 days after Boris won the confidence vote in the 1922. Even the Twitter taglines of the campaigns are near identical, with a google search for “Lizforleader” still returning accounts for both campaigns. It does have a ring to it…

Truss will aim to exceed Kendall’s 4% of the membership vote…

Liz Kendall somehow managed to insult over a million supermarket workers with her question in Parliament yesterday, after claiming shelf-stackers are supposedly “better off” than carers and that that is “not good enough for our country”. Speaking at the despatch box Kendall said:

“Despite repeated promises, the truth is that someone would be better off stacking shelves at Morrisons than caring for older or disabled people, and that is simply not good enough for our country […] can the Minister confirm that the Government’s Covid infection control fund had to be used to improve pay so that staff did not have to work for more than one care home and could actually afford to self-isolate?”  

Kendall’s comments didn’t just upset those working at Morrisons; it wasn’t long before the usual figures joined the pile-on, with Owen Jones and Aaron Bastani leading the hordes of performatively upset activists:

Both supermarket workers and carers deserve good pay, terms and conditions. https://t.co/4vKn0Lb8PT

— Owen Jones 🌹 (@OwenJones84) April 13, 2021

both important jobs, supermarket workers were key workers in the pandemic.

Food logistics more important than most jobs!

— Aaron Bastani (@AaronBastani) April 13, 2021

Guido has actually stacked-a-shelf or two in his youth, not sure the same can be said by these two left-wing theorists…

Despite an ill-fated attempt by the Socialist Campaign Group of MPs to re-instate Rebecca Long Bailey, Starmer has no intention to. Instead Guido is told a new Shadow Education Secretary will be chosen in days. Here are the runners and riders…

• Emma Hardy – Currently a Shadow Education Minister, Hardy has been MP for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle since 2017. Before then she had worked as a primary school teacher but quit to work for the NUT. Her dad was even head teacher at her primary school. She’s also handily Starmer’s former PPS back when he was Shadow Brexit Secretary. Would fit right in…
• Toby Perkins – Shadow Minister for Apprenticeships and Lifelong Learning and Chesterfield MP since 2010. State educated. A member of Labour Friends of Israel, his sekectin would really annoy the Corbynistas. Although he is male so would shift the ShadCab gender balance awry…
• Tulip Siddiq – Privately educated at The Royal School, Hampstead, Sidiq is now Shadow Minister for Children and Early Years. She’ll know the brief…
• Lucy Powell – Currently Shadow BEIS, Powell held the Shadow Education brief for nine months under Corbyn until she resigned in the failed coup against his leadership in June 2016. A standard bearer of the soft left…
• Liz Kendall – Currently a shadow social care minister, state educated, and standard bearer for Labour centrism. Blairite Kendall is who to pick if Starmer wants to go nuclear on the hard left…
• Lord Adonis – Proper Blairite with radical views on education that Michael Gove continued. If Starmer cares about education results and not union blessings the architect of the incredibly successful London Challenge and Tony Blair’s academies policy is the man. Imagine the faces of the Corbynistas…

One member it definitely won’t be is Dawn Butler, who currently sits on the Education Select Committee. A colleague of hers on the committee tells Guido she has now missed seven meetings in a row…

An emotional musical tribute to Jess Phillips and her all-too-brief leadership campaign - this is “Kendall in the Wind” pic.twitter.com/bS9X3MJJdX

— TheIainDuncanSmiths (@TheIDSmiths) January 22, 2020