Cowards Run.... : But Has May Helped Bring Labour Together?
Labour will be down one 'demigod' with the departure of poisonous Middlesbrough MP Tom 'Quitter' Blenkinsop - and we couldn't be more pleased.
Timid Tom, whose Twitter bio describes him as the 'son of the infant Hercules', doesn't seem to take after his father, and has fled in panic at the prospect of campaigning to keep his job.
This display of rank cowardice has earned him both condemnation and applause from his constituents, including CLP chair Ian Blades, who said:
"I feel that all current MPs should stay and fight for Labour to rid us of this vile government. MPs that decide not to stand are not only letting their constituents down but the whole Labour family"
"Good riddance! It's about time we had an MP who actually works for us" said another local,
"I'm amazed he had the backbone to stand down - in fact, I'm amazed he has the backbone to stand UP"
Letting down his constituents is nothing new for Tom, though - this is an MP who finds the idea of interacting with them so abhorrent that he refuses to even be in the same room with his CLP, and has blocked vast swathes of people on social media for....well, who knows.
An MP who roars 'entryist' at both new Labour members and even some who were members when he was still in nappies.
An MP who was gifted his seat following the death of his predecessor, and has so alienated the people he claims t represent that he is afraid to stand again.
An MP who apparently gets his local knowledge from newspapers - this year he has spent just £38.00 on venue hire for the handful of surgeries he has managed, but £135.00 on local papers. Not that Tom nips to the newsagent - he has them delivered, presumably to avoid the risk of being set upon in the street by rampant Momentum Trots.
No great loss.
The election announcement seems to have provided Labour, to some extent, with a 'self-cleaning house' - As well as Blenkinsop, the quitters list includes 7 MP's labelled as either hostile or neutral in the now infamous list. Only one of those leaving, Pat Glass, was among the 'friendlys', and she had already announced she was standing down before the election was called.
Well that covers cowards - now, what do traitors do....oh yes, fear.
Even some of the most vitriolic Corbyn haters seem to be anxious that their seats on the gravy train could be endangered and have crawled from the woodwork to say, with varying degrees of believability, that they support the leader.
Neil Coyle, who has previously taken every chance to attack Corbyn, even stooping so low as to work with the Sun, had an amazing change of heart within hours of the election announcement.
"Any Labour Prime Minister is better than a Conservative Prime Minister" he said,
"I know Jeremy would make a better PM than Theresa May"
Even Michael Dugher has managed to bring himself to retweet a complimentary post about Corbyn's performance at PMQs, and other confirmed 'hostiles' have begun confining their posts to campaigning and policies.
Luke Akehurst and his paid troll Matt Pound have actually admitted they agree with Corbyn both on ruling out an alliance with the SNP and on housing policy. And wonder of wonders, Richard Angell seems to have finally realised that it's about fighting the Tories.
Perhaps people have been listening to Owen Smith, who said in a piece for the Mirror:
"Now is the time for us to unite, to stand together and to fight our true enemy, this hard-right Tory Party"
"Because whatever disagreements I have had with Jeremy Corbyn about the future of the Labour Party and our path back to power, the are nothing compared to the chasm that exists between my traditional Labour values and Theresa May's vision for a permanently Tory Britain"
Has Theresa May's bid to take advantage of disunity actually begun to bring about unity? I hope so - that really would be progress.