Emily Thornberry is the one to watch in Labour’s leadership election

Watch out for Emily Thornberry. She has sneaked through to the next round of the Labour leadership contest because of nominations to make the whole thing “more diverse”. Some of those who nominated her stressed that this was not an endorsement of the woman. There are people in the Parliamentary Labour Party who haven’t learned from what happened last time. When MPs decided to make the contest “more diverse” in 2015 they ended up with Corbyn as leader.

One of those who nominated Corbyn on that occasion, Old Margaret Beckett, later agreed that her decision to do so had been that of a ‘moron’. But they do not learn.

Thornberry is competent, unlike Ms Wrong Daily. She is a woman, unlike Sir Keir Starmer. And she probably loathes the working class more than either of them. 100/1 odds offered by the bookies seem to me too good to miss. She will probably not win. But she is politically odious enough to do so, at a pinch. Never underestimate the death wish of Labour.