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WATCH: Tristram Hunt lays into Corbyn at Progress rally

Well that didn’t last long. After Jeremy Corbyn was re-elected as Labour leader on Saturday, Corbyn sceptic MPs appeared to put their differences to one side as they took to the airwaves to claim that Corbyn could be Prime Minister.

At tonight’s Progress rally at conference, that facade was lifted. MPs including Liz Kendall and Ian Murray took to the stand to vow that they would not be pushed out of the party as they slammed the threat of deselection. However, it was Tristram Hunt’s speech that caught Mr S’s attention. The MP for Stoke-on-Trent, who wrote this week’s Spectator diary, clearly has no intention of taking Corbyn up on the offer of an ‘olive branch’ as he launched into a series of jokes at the expense of the left-wing leader’s regime:

‘We’re in Liverpool where Labour was once upon a time held hostage by a far left faction that sent it spiralling towards electoral defeat, but I’m glad that’s all in the past. Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m glad we’ve got our party back.

I’m glad we’ve finally got a proper socialist leader, willing to confront fascism wherever he sees it — Assad’s Syria or Putin’s Russia.

Who’s happy to have an open political discussion and not seek to silence internal debate by putting MPs on hit lists. An end to the kind of irrational leadership cult that so disfigured our party in the past.’

Momentum’s James Schneider also didn’t get off scot-free with Hunt describing him as ‘the only person to make Andy Burnham’s political journey look straightforward’.

Given that Corbyn was nowhere to be seen at the event, Mr S thought it best to record the speech so he wouldn’t miss out…

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