Bland keeps quiet on Labour leadershiip

As the year comes to a close, how is our fictitious South Borsetshire MP Guy Bland coping with the travails of the Labour Party?   Will he be one of those who puts his head above the penetrate to defenestrate Keir Starmer after poor election results in May?

Remember that Bland did not expect to become a MP, but thought that a good showing would boost his career as a public affairs specialist in the charity sector.

Bland's wife Emma has left religious affairs at the BBC and has a successful podcast called Honest to God after the controversial book written by the Bishop of Woolwich in the 1960s.

The couple now have a toddler and they are renting a property in the cathedral close in Felpersham.  Bland thinks that he might have a future in the labyrinthine bureaucracy of the Church of England.   His chances would be enhanced if he could become Second Church Estates Commissioner in the Commons, but Battersea MP Marsha de Cordova shows no signs of stepping down.

It is much harder to defenestrate in the Labour Party than in the Conservative Party.  Eighty MPs would have to declare their wish to replace Starmer.

Bland's view is that any such nove requires deep thought.   He won his seat by something of a fluke and expects to lose it at the next election regardless of who becomes Labour leader.

He thinks Starmer is a serious man in a serious job, but accepts that the electorate wants more in terms of leadership.  He thinks that Starmer would be a good foeign secretary if he could be persuaded to step aside (following the examples of Sir Alec Douglas-Home and William Hague).

He is not going to put his head above the parapet, but he thinks that a Streeting - Rayner team (PM and deputy) would be the best bet.   A change of chancellor would follow.    However, he thinks that the endless media speculation is in part an attempt to portray Labour as a divided party incapable of governing.

The late news of a concession on inheritance tax for farmers has put some of his constituents in a better mood, although he is barred from most of the local pubs.  However, he will go to midnight mass with his wife tonight in something approaching a state of grace.