More questions than answers as Corbyn faces his own Tea Party

Apportioning blame is the name of the game among New Labour's old faithful

Blunkers wrote: “Historically, we have always given new leaders the benefit of the doubt, showing unbelievable loyalty ... the new leadership will know that loyalty will not be set aside easily.” (Getty Images)

As Labour’s civil war threatens to rival Syria’s for chaotic complexity, the questions come thicker and faster than the answers.

Who’s been spreading a mischievous rumour that Jeremy Corbyn passed out in his office last month (which he denied) and may be too unwell to continue his serene stewardship of the party for much longer?

Is he planning to punish those who defied him over Syria in a new year shadow cabinet reshuffle of Macmillanesque brutality?

Was the Oldham West by-election win, as some who resent it for buying Mr Corbyn time apparently think, the final proof of his lack of electoral appeal?

And do you recall every word of an article by David Blunkett from three months ago? David thinks you might – “Perhaps readers will remember my article in The Mail on Sunday on 13 September”, he writes in that journal, “the day after Mr Corbyn won the leadership”.

In this unforgettable piece, the Cassandra of Sheffield needlessly reminds us, he foresaw all this mayhem in crystal clarity.

In fact, he foresaw only part of it. He did anticipate deselection threats and general nastiness towards MPs from those activists whose grasp of etiquette might depress the principals of their Lake Lucerne finishing schools.

Yet, in the very same article, Blunkers also wrote this: “Historically, we have always given new leaders the benefit of the doubt, showing unbelievable loyalty ... the new leadership will know that loyalty will not be set aside easily.”

Ah, yes, indeed, let’s not overlook the enduring loyalty shown to Mr Corbyn from the start by Chuka Umunna, Liz Kendall, Yvette Cooper, Tristram Hunt and others who couldn’t bring themselves to serve in his shadow cabinet.

Or the unbelievable loyalty of backbench idiocrats like the genius whose recorded phone message runs: “Hi, this is Simon Danczuk. I’m busy right now, but whatever you’re calling about, it’s all Corbyn’s fault and I’d love to write the article.”

Or the astonishing loyalty of that self-regarding cabal of Blairites – former ministers and journalistic fellow travellers – who supported war in Iraq and cannot begin to comprehend why their wisdom on Syria might be questioned. Back then, under Mr Blair, Mr Blunkett believed solemnly in collective responsibility. Now, under Mr Corbyn, not so much.

And so, since apportioning blame is the name of this game, to the major portion of responsibility for this civil war. Just as with the birthers and Obama, there are those here – extremists by nature, if not politics, and powered by the tantrumy child’s outrage at a sense of entitlement denied – who refused from the start to accept Mr Corbyn’s election as a legitimate democratic choice.

He is facing his own Tea Party, and recent history from across the Atlantic teaches that you cannot reason with one of those.

John McCain spells it out for his British friends

It never being too late to learn, that old dog John McCain has a new trick. The erstwhile Republican presidential candidate, who never met a war he didn’t like, is moonlighting as an interpreter.

Anyone bamboozled by Defence Secretary Michael Fallon’s insistence that the RAF, with its “round-the-clock” bombing, will be crucial in the skies above Syria, is directed to McCain.

“We will have some token aircraft over there from the British,” he usefully translates, “and they’ll drop a few bombs, and we’ll say thank you very much.”

Desmond’s deft touch could just be what’s needed

On the eve of Hanukkah, intriguing gossip reaches us that Richard Desmond has ambitions to buy The Jewish Chronicle.

From now on, media analysts will be reading the paper carefully for clues, albeit in a downward direction: after all, the last time the pornster’s pornster acquired a title for which he worked, JC editor Stephen Pollard memorably indented the acrostic “Fuck Desmond” in his Daily Express column.

But the lovable pornographer is hardly one to bear a grudge, and the paper might even benefit from his genteel influence. Such regular slots as Bubba’s Baps, featuring grandmothers posing topless at bar mitzvah parties, wouldn’t harm circulation one bit.

Cherie champions the underdogs

In a Times article co-authored with a colleague at Omnia Strategy, her “international legal consultancy”, Cherie Blair welcomes the Modern Slavery Act – legislation to combat multinationals using slaves anywhere in their supply chains.

No doubt, she emailed a copy to the government of the Maldives, from which Omnia accepted a juicy contract for advice on “democracy consolidation”.

Recently, Cherie had a public spat about human rights in the Maldives with Amal Clooney, who is working pro bono (as McCain would translate, that means “for free”) for a former president who was given 13 years in the jug after a slightly dubious trial.

The Maldives is known as a host country for human trafficking and forced labour.

Nice article, though.

Tim Farron’s exhausting

Following his shock support for bombing Syria, I meant to dwell on Tim Farron, the 12th-rate rural vicar currently masquerading – How did this happen? How? – as the Liberal Democrat leader. However, he is too irrelevant and I just don’t have the strength.