Isabel Hardman

Just minutes before the crunch Shadow Cabinet meeting about the Labour stance on air strikes in Syria, the party has released figures showing an overwhelming majority oppose UK bombing in Syria. This is the statement: 75 per cent of Labour Party members responding to weekend consultation oppose UK bombing in Syria A sample of this weekend's consultation of Labour Party members, carried out in response to an email from Jeremy Corbyn, issued Friday 27th November, has shown that 75 per cent of Labour party members who have responded oppose UK bombing in Syria. 107,875 responses were received of which 64,771 were confirmed as full individual Labour Party members. The remainder included affiliated supporters and registered supporters.

Jeremy Corbyn didn’t show his Shadow Foreign Secretary a copy of what he was going to say in response to David Cameron’s statement on Syria, Coffee House understands. Sources have told me that Hilary Benn was spotted sitting outside Corbyn’s office this morning before the Prime Minister made his Commons statement. Benn appeared to be waiting for something. When I asked his spokesman whether Benn had been given advance sight of Corbyn’s planned response to the Prime Minister, the spokesman said ‘no’.

How does an Opposition party make up for the fact that its response to an economic statement is necessarily rather vague and rushed? In previous years Ed Balls would hold a briefing for journalists three or four hours after the announcement so that he could produce analysis involving figures and the small print that it is impossible to conjure up in the two seconds between the Chancellor finishing his statement and the start of your own response. These briefings became a bit of a show, because Balls loved the knockabout and also loved revealing details that he hoped would skewer George Osborne.

Either Len McCluskey is, in the Corbynista narrative, a Tory, or things are going badly wrong for the man his union endorsed for the Labour leadership. The York Press reports that the Unite leader told an audience in York that Jeremy Corbyn ‘has to come to terms with his leadership’, that he ‘can’t necessarily say the first thing that comes into his head’ and that his comments about shoot-to-kill were ‘inappropriate’. What this shows - unless Len McCluskey really is a red Tory - is that even those union bosses who have been agitating for years for Labour to move left have been shocked by how disorganised and naive his operation has been since taking the helm of the party.

As David Cameron confirmed in his statement to the Commons today, he will set out his strategy on attacking Islamic State in Syria on Thursday. MPs will then get the weekend to consider their positions, with a vote expected next week. A number of odd things are happening in preparation for this vote. One is that the Tory whips are being incredibly nice to people they normally ignore: Labour MPs. I understand that there is a briefing scheduled for Wednesday for Labour MPs at the Ministry of Defence, with a similar one for Tory MPs at a separate time. As I said this morning, it looks as though Labour MPs will help Cameron get the ‘biggest possible majority’ that he told the Commons he was after.

It’s quite clear what the Tory approach to a vote on British involvement in action against Islamic State in Syria will be: the Prime Minister will set out his strategy for this later this week, warning MPs that they need to choose to be ‘Churchill not Chamberlain’. George Osborne warned this morning on Marr that a second defeat in the Commons on Syria ‘would be a publicity coup for Isil, that would send a terrible message about Britain’s role in the world’. But Labour’s position is, of course, not clear at all at present. Jeremy Corbyn's slogan of 'straight talking, honest politics' sounds like an aspiration at present.