Labour party

Today is deadline day for all self-assessment tax returns, with those who fail to submit their return in line for a late-fee penalty. Happily John McDonnell looks set to escape this fate -- he tweeted a picture of his tax return this morning. What's more, the shadow chancellor of the exchequer is challenging George Osborne to do the same: https://twitter.com/johnmcdonnellMP/status/693749243673219072 Given that MPs were on a salary of £67,060 for the tax year ending April 2015, the £61,575 declared may be a reduced figure in light of pension contributions. However, what's more curious is that McDonnell hasn't actually published his final calculation.

Last year Alex Salmond told Anna Soubry to 'behave yourself, woman' after the pair clashed in the chamber. While it was Salmond who found himself in the firing line on that occasion for his choice of words, Soubry is now back in the spotlight over her Commons etiquette. John Bercow took the small business minister to task on Friday during a debate about job losses in Sheffield where Labour MPs accused her of lacking compassion. Soubry repeatedly heckled Gordon Marsden as he spoke, leading him to ask: 'will the minister stop chuntering from a sedentary position?' The Speaker then launched into a rant -- urging Soubry to show 'a basic dignity': 'Order! Minister, you have had your say, and you will have further says.

Since Jess Phillips was elected as the MP for Birmingham Yardley in May, the Labour politician has become known for her outspoken views -- previously telling Diane Abbott to 'f--- off'. However, her straight-talking approach reached new heights during last night's episode of Question Time after she likened the Cologne sex attacks to a night out in Birmingham. Discussing the refugee crisis on a panel made up of Angus Robertson, Patrick McLoughlin and Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, Jess Phillips was asked whether Britain could cope with more immigrants in light of the Cologne sex attacks in Germany or the woman who was killed in Sweden.

Even though Robert Peston has only been in his new job as ITV's political editor for little more than a week, he has already managed to slip-up. On top of experiencing difficulties getting into the ITV building, the former BBC economics editor -- who Marr once described as a man ‘crippled by a sense of his own lack of self-worth’ -- managed to refer to Liz Kendall as 'Liz Corbyn' during one of his first broadcast interviews. However, should any of his former BBC colleagues struggle to take him seriously, they may now need to reconsider. With relations between Labour and the BBC at an all-time low over accusations of anti-Corbyn bias, ITV look set to cash in on their rival's ongoing feud.

When will ministers hold their vote on Trident renewal? The Sun reports today that the ‘main gate’ decision on the size of the fleet will take place by the end of March, throwing Labour into disarray ahead of elections in Scotland, Wales, London and local government. Cunning thinkers in the Tory party point out that for the vote to have maximum political effect, it needs to take place closer to the start of March. This is so that MSPs can also have a debate on Trident in the Scottish Parliament before Holyrood rises on 23 March for the election campaign.

Given last year’s election was so much about the possibility of the SNP and Labour working together in government, Labour figures will be smiling ruefully at Nicola Sturgeon’s interview on the Andrew Marr Show today, in which she stuck the boot into the party she once suggested a ‘progressive alliance’ with. The Scottish First Minister is of course thinking more about fighting Labour in this year’s Holyrood elections than about the Westminster Parliament, and so she wanted to paint her main challengers as weak and confusing.

Angela Eagle wasn’t told about a controversial plan to ban companies who do not pay a living wage from paying out dividends to shareholders before Jeremy Corbyn floated it in a speech last week, Coffee House understands. I have learned that the Shadow Business Secretary was not consulted over the proposal, which is believed to have triggered the resignation of the Labour leader’s Head of Policy and Rebuttal, Neale Coleman. Corbyn floated the idea in his speech to the Fabian Society on Saturday, saying 'another proposal would be to bar or restrict companies from distributing dividends until they pay all their workers the living wage'.

Labour is a very poor opposition at the moment, and no amount of money could fix that. But the government is currently pursuing a policy that seems intended to weaken even decent oppositions. In the Autumn Statement, George Osborne announced a 19 per cent cut to Short money, which is the state funding for political parties to be able to do their job of representing the millions of voters who want them in parliament. The 19 per cent cut is in line the reductions made to unprotected spending departments in the spending review, and is quite easy for ministers to defend, because they can talk about reducing the cost of politics, and voters like that idea. Naturally, the opposition parties involved don’t like the idea, and have been complaining about it.

A new face at PMQs becomes samey after a few months. Corbo reached that point some time ago and Cameron can now contain him without breaking a sweat. He’s not threatened by the Labour leader for the simple reason that Corbyn lacks any forensic guile. To prepare, mount or press home an attack is beyond his powers so he just reads out his set questions in a low verbal moan, like next door’s Hoover. Today they tussled over the scrapping of bursaries for trainee nurses. Cameron said this reform makes it easier to fill the wards with bustling sisters and swishing matrons. No, said Corbyn. It’s harder. Amazingly, some light was shed on this difference. It depends where they come from. Corbyn wants vacancies filled from any old place.

Labour’s report on its election defeat is finally out, and it says there are four reasons for its defeat: Failure to shake off the myth that we were responsible for the financial crash and therefore failure to build trust in the economy. Inability to deal with the issues of ‘connection’ and, in particular, failing to convince on benefits and immigration. Despite his surge in 2015, Ed Miliband still wasn’t judged to be as strong a leader as David Cameron. The fear of the SNP ‘propping up’ a minority Labour government. These are not surprising, and the report’s narrative verdict on how the party lost is far more interesting.

Emily Thornberry might not know why Jeremy Corbyn made her Shadow Defence Secretary, but she will have known that this afternoon’s departmental questions for the Ministry of Defence was going to be a difficult session. She came armed with two questions that she knew few would listen to, and delivered them well. But for the rest of the session, she had to listen to MPs on all sides of the Commons attacking not the government of the day, but the policy of the Opposition party. In fact, the government was barely scrutinised at all today, so intense was the focus on Labour and its potential U-turn on Trident.