Labour party

The Labour party has a troubling recess ahead of it. Many of its members just won’t know what to do with themselves. This is because for the first time in two years, there is no leadership contest. Those who had eschewed beach holidays in favour of spending their summer recess in windowless rooms listening to contenders for the top job fight over who would really, really nationalise the railways now have nothing to do. Even before Labour lost the election unexpectedly well, few anticipated an immediate challenge to Jeremy Corbyn.

Does Labour want to leave the Single Market? Maybes aye, maybes naw, as we used to say in North Britain. Corbyn isn't saying. It might be one of the biggest questions of public policy of this decade, but the man who now has at least a non-trivial chance of being PM one day isn't saying where he stands on it. This matters. Of course, we think we know what he intends on the single market. We think he is hostile to it and regards it as a wicked capitalist plot. We think he also inclines towards leaving because he wants to keep inside the remaining chunk of the old Labour working-class vote that is persuaded by the Ukip argument that the single market means free movement which means immigrants.   But we don't know because Corbyn isn't saying.

Politicians have been busy swapping horror stories of the unacceptable abuse dished out to MPs and candidates running for Parliament. Fortunately for Labour frontbencher Jack Dromey, he appears to have escaped the worst of the vitriol. But when talking on the Daily Politics about his own experiences, Dromey resorted to some very unparliamentary language. Here's what he said: 'I personally don't get, if you excuse the language, that much shit. But the shit I get comes overwhelmingly from the right' Dromey's language has not gone down well on Twitter, where at least one parent complained that her child heard him swear. Mr S thinks Dromey doesn't really have a leg to stand on: after all, his swearing came at least eight hours before the watershed...

If a line is repeated often enough it becomes true. Or true enough, anyway. This, at any rate, is one of the axiomatic rules of modern politics. He who controls the ballyhooed “narrative” owns the truth. Which is why the interpretation of any given event swiftly becomes almost as important as the actual event itself. So up-pops Matt Zarb-Cousin, formerly Jeremy Corbyn’s spokesman and now one of his more charming outriders on social media, to claim that it was Jezzah what has saved the Labour party in Scotland. As he puts it, “Corbyn’s supporters have long argued that returning Labour to its socialist roots would be necessary if the party was to ever regain support in Scotland.” Well, up to a point Lord Spart.

Gay lefties have hated gay Tories ever since learning of their existence. The concept baffles them, like pro-life women or alcohol-free wine. Those with long memories are aware of the Conservative Party's ugly record on gay equality. This is the party of Section 28, of differential consent laws, of fretting about children 'being taught that they have an inalienable right to be gay'. But gay Tories, having largely rehabilitated their party and with many of the major gay rights battles settled favourably, hoped the rainbow flag might finally have space for a stripe of blue.

Since Jeremy Corbyn’s surprisingly good election defeat, his MPs who previously plotted to get rid of him have been queuing up to pledge their allegiance to the Labour leader. They have been doing this partly because they did make some rather dire predictions about the impossibility of holding their own seats, or indeed of Labour surviving at all with Corbyn at the helm, and partly because most of them are under pressure from the Corbynites in their local party to apologise and show loyalty from now on. Luciana Berger’s local party is demanding an official apology from her to Corbyn for her previous criticisms of his leadership – something she has thus far steered away from offering.

It was better from Theresa May today. She was combative, prickly and forceful at PMQs. The ship is moving on a steadier course. And two toxic enemies have returned to the fold. In the days following the election, both Anna Soubry and Nicky Morgan were ‘helpfully’ suggesting a possible timetable for Mrs May’s departure. Today they both asked supportive questions. And Mrs May read out the answers, tight-lipped. Only those within a yard of her could hear her molars grinding. The Labour leader got a rather glum cheer from his party. He suggested that the PM should fund a pay-rise for nurses because ‘she seems to have found a billion pounds to save her own job.’ As usual, he had a missive of woe to delight us with.

Almost everything which is said officially about student finances is obfuscatory and contradictory, starting with Damian Green’s assertion at the weekend that we need 'a national debate' on tuition fees, only for former education secretary Michael Gove to say the opposite the following day. A week before the General Election was called, the Student Loan Company announced that it was increasing interest rates from 4.9 percent to 6.1 percent, according to its formula of inflation plus 3 percent. Due to the effects of compound interest, that potentially takes the lifetime cost of a typical student’s debts from around £51,000 to £70,000, according to the calculator on the Money Saving Expert website.

‘The unexpected appeal of Jeremy Corbyn’s manifesto has thrown the Tories into panic’, says the Sun. With Damian Green suggesting a ‘debate’ may be needed over tuition fees and other ministers ‘piling in every day with demands for more spending’, the Conservative party seems to be making the assumption that the best way to tackle the threat of Corbyn is to copy him. This is ‘suicidal’, says the Sun, which argues that not only would it be wrong to try and take on the ‘hard left’ on their own terms, it would also be dangerous for the economy.

This first week back in Parliament has proved quite how fragile the government’s power is. It may be able to govern in a technical sense - announcing bills, occupying Downing Street, and so on - but it cannot guarantee that it will get what it wants in the Commons. Having to accept the Stella Creasy amendment on free abortions for women from Northern Ireland shows that, but this is just the start of a legislative free-for-all in which MPs from all parties are able to propose changes to any bill ministers put forward, and know that they stand an unusual chance of success. It just takes a handful of Tory MPs to sympathise with these changes, and then the government must either accept the amendment or face humiliation and defeat in a successful rebellion.

One of the most disappointing things about the general election for me was how few people must have read Nick Cohen’s article ‘Why You Shouldn’t Vote For Jeremy Corbyn’ before entering polling booths on 8 June. Or perhaps they did read it and thought: up yours, mate. The more I think about it, the more I suspect it’s a case of the latter. Mr Cohen, quoting from a Labour party member, listed the perfectly sensible reasons why sane people would not want Corbyn as prime minister.