Jeremy Corbyn’s much-awaited appearance at the weekly meeting of the parliamentary Labour party didn’t go particularly well this evening, which means that for the group of increasingly determined MPs trying to oust him, it was a hugely successful session.
MPs were reminded that the meeting is off the record at the start, before being given a lecture by the leader about the importance of message discipline. They were told that there would be weekly messages that MPs should stick to. A number of MPs found this ‘unpalatable’, and some left.
There was also a ‘dismal’ PowerPoint presentation from Jon Trickett which apparently promised a great deal but revealed little, telling the party that more details of the economic strategy were forthcoming and presenting what some presented described as a ‘Tories are bad and Labour is good’ narrative.
A division then meant that it would have been too late for Corbyn to return to the committee room to take questions from MPs and make his commitment of filming The Agenda for ITV tonight.
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