Steerpike

Oh dear. It's safe to say that last week was not a great week for Jeremy Corbyn after the Labour leader found members of his party on the verge of revolt following his so-called 'revenge reshuffle'. His decision to sack members of his Shadow Cabinet led to resignations from Shadow Ministers as party members criticised his decision to move Emily Thornberry -- who is anti-Trident -- into the role of Shadow Defence Secretary. However despite this the Labour leader appears to be on fighting form.

The British National Party found itself back in the news today after years in the wilderness. However, it was bad news once again for the beleaguered party -- the Electoral Commission had removed them from the register of political parties. While the decision was met with cheers by many, it hardly came as a surprise given the party's difficulties in recent months. In the general election, they fielded only eight candidates as their vote share dived by 99.7 per cent. Despite this, the celebrations may have been somewhat pre-emptive as the party have now hit back. They says that they are definitely not over. Instead, they simply encountered a 'small clerical error' which led to the party being knocked off the electoral register list.

It's safe to say this week hasn't been the best for Labour. As well as a never-ending reshuffle saga, Corbyn was accused of 'low-level non-violent misogyny' over the lack of women in the top roles in his Shadow Cabinet by Labour MP Jess Phillips. So with the cabinet officially reshuffled, brains at Labour HQ decided it was time for a very special announcement: they had increased the number of women in their Shadow Cabinet by one! A press release entitled 'NEWS FROM LABOUR: Following the reshuffle women now occupy 17 out of the 31 shadow cabinet positions' was sent around which included the number of women in both the shadow cabinet and the ministerial teams.

Labour has found itself on the verge of a civil war today as a number of MPs have turned on their dear leader over his Shadow Cabinet reshuffle. After weeks of conflicting briefings in the media, it was Corbyn's decision to axe Pat McFadden which proved to be a particular sore point amongst Labour MPs as two shadow ministers resigned in protest. This was in large because McFadden claims he was sacked over his comments after the Paris terrorist attacks when he asked David Cameron to confirm that the actions of terrorists could not be dismissed as a reaction to the actions of those in the West. At the time, it was clear McFadden was referring to controversial comments from Stop the War which were later deleted.

In December, Julie Burchill had lunch with Jess Phillips MP, and decided in an article for Spectator Life that the gobby Brummie had the balls to drag the Labour party back from Korbyn’s Keystone Kommunism. It now seems that Phillips agrees. Speaking on Newsnight last night, she admitted - over a pint - that she was indeed interested in the role: 'Yes, absolutely I would consider doing it, a long time in the future. It’s not something I’m planning on doing any time soon but it’s absolutely something I would do in the future, yes.' https://www.youtube.com/watch?

When Jeremy Corbyn formed his Shadow Cabinet after he was voted in as Labour leader, he soon became the subject of much mockery in the media. This wasn't so much because of his appointments, but because his late night discussions about who to appoint were overheard by loitering hacks who then published the private discussions. This even included the conclusion from Team Corbyn that they were 'taking a fair amount of s--- out there' regarding the lack of women in senior positions. With Corbyn's much-hyped -- and much-briefed -- 'revenge reshuffle' seemingly now on, Mr S is pleased to hear that he has learnt from his past mistakes. The Labour leader has just ushered a number of loitering lobby hacks from outside of his office, politely asking them to move somewhere else.

Back in August -- after much anticipation -- Jeremy Corbyn finally revealed some of his economic policies to the world. His policies -- also known as 'Corbynomics' -- took inspiration from the tax expert Richard Murphy's blog. While several of the ideas -- which included reclaiming the £120bn 'tax gap' and quantitative easing -- were described as 'starry-eyed, hard left' policies by Labour's Chris Leslie, Corbyn was not put off. The Labour leader invited Murphy -- who is not a party member -- to Labour conference. In fact, Murphy even thought at one point that he was in line for a role in the Labour Treasury team. Alas the dream appears to have come to an abrupt end.

This week the Today show is being edited by a selection of guests including Sir Bradley Wiggins, Lord Browne and the architect David Adjaye. The Welsh actor Michael Sheen kicked proceedings off on Monday when he managed to upset a number of flood victims as he dismissed calls to cut foreign aid in order to spend more on flood defences at home as a'false dichotomy'. Today it was the turn of Miriam González Durántez -- the high-flying lawyer who is married to Nick Clegg -- to take the helm. Durántez -- who had presenters in a spin last week over whether it was okay to refer to her as Nick Clegg's wife -- gave her edit a distinctly feminist focus as she looked at topics that touch on the Inspiring Women campaign she runs.

In recent months both Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell have defended the Momentum group from criticism. Created as a result of Corbyn's leadership campaign, the grassroots movement aims to organise activists in towns and cities in order to create a mass movement for the Labour leader. Despite this, the far-left group has repeatedly been accused of being linked to deselection threats against centre-left Labour MPs. However, it seems that Momentum's biggest problem may actually be learning to control its supporters.