Rebel Labour MPs ask for leadership papers

Bonzo's Montreaux

It matters not a jot. The voters have simply stopped listening, putting one other muppet in his place won't change anything. Wave goodbye to the John Lewis catalogue, folks.

Ian C

That's what we wanted to hear...

Labour Member

How do you know this isn't just the latest exercise in bullying by Brown? People being asked to sign as a token of their loyalty.

Would that it were otherwise, but that requires the cabinet to grow a backbone.

Liz Brown

Time to bring out the bunting and hold street parties?

GS

Another unelected prime minister?

It might be constitutionally legal, but my word will the electorate be peeved.

salieri

How amusing to see this post immediately below the BBC's view that there seems to be no threat to Brown. And how appropriate that the Today programme was immediately followed by the distinguished participants in the Hitler Diaries hoax hanging their heads in collective shame - radio at its best, by the way. Nick Robinson (whose commentaries I greatly admire) may be feeling a little rueful this afternoon.

Or was NR's prognostication a brilliant ruse after all, designed to smoke out the rebels?

LSS

Siobhan McDonagh has just been named as one of the MP's tp request a nomination paper. Hopefully the start of many who think tearing their own party apart is going to make them more electable.

Frank Pulley

Simply must post the meme I received from a friend today, just in case Coffee Housers haven't seen it (a political punch line, so read it through).
I almost changed to 'Berkshire County Fair' to 'Berkshire Hunt Annual Fete', but decided to leave it unadulterated (so to speak) as I know some members of this parish object to my coarse epithets!

>Trevor, the farmer, was in the fertilised egg business. He had several hundred young layers (hens), called 'pullets' and eight or ten roosters, whose job it was to fertilise the eggs.

The farmer kept records and any rooster that didn't perform went into the stock pot and was replaced. That took an awful lot of his time so he bought a set of tiny bells and attached them to his roosters. Each bell had a different tone so Trevor could tell from a distance, which rooster was performing.

Now he could sit on the porch and fill out an efficiency report simply by listening to the bells.

The farmer's favourite rooster was old Gordon, and a very fine specimen he was too, but on this particular morning Trevor noticed old Gordon's bell hadn't rung at all! Trevor went to investigate. The other roosters were chasing pullets, bells-a-ringing. The pullets, hearing the roosters coming, would run for cover but to farmer Trevor's amazement, Gordon had his bell in his beak, so it couldn't ring.

He'd sneak up on a pullet, do his job and walk on to the next one. Trevor was so proud of Gordon, he entered him into the West Berkshire County Fair and Gordon became an overnight sensation among the judges.

The Result - the judges not only awarded Gordon the No Bell Piece Prize but they also awarded him the Pulletsurprise as well.

Clearly Gordon was a politician in the making: who else but a politician could figure out how to win two of the most highly coveted awards on our planet by being the best at sneaking up on the populace and screwing them when they weren't paying attention?

Do you know a Pulletician called Gordon?

DM

If true, what happens next?
Too much to hope for, I suppose, that they will actually get round to filling them in.

Any word on who actually has asked for them, how many have gone out, and the process/timescale involved?

Aidan

Apparently one of the MPs who has asked for nomination papers is a junior whip - Siobhain McDonagh - see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7613086.stm

jon dee

Funnier still to hear Eddie Mair questioning McDonaghs loyalty when he was clearly rattled that the BBC had been well and truly scooped.

Anglica

As always-Thank You Frank Pulley.
Brilliant.