Toast à la Little Saint James
Sometime tomorrow, or not long after, four things will likely happen in the politics of Epstein World.
1. Keir Starmer will request an audience with the King before travelling back to the House of Commons to announce his departure from No 10.
2. Angela Raynor and Wes Streeting will compete to lead tributes to his leadership and speak of his personal warmth and support during their respective time as an MP. Both might just be lying.
3. The Labour candidate for the forthcoming Gorton and Denton by-election, someone called Angeliki Stogia, will be pressured into resigning her candidacy, and an unseemly rush to put Andy Burnham on the ticket will be initiated. However Burnham, having just returned to his Manchester mayorality after an unsuccessful attempt to get the nomination, will be forced to decline on the basis that he can’t dis-own the lucky, lucky people of Manchester a second time. That said, there is the interesting question as to whether at least half the Labour parliamentary party would want to campaign for Burnham anyway.
4. Peter Mandelson, just thrown out of the party by Starmer and about to have his knighthood revoked, will issue a brief statement of sorrow for the pain and difficulty he has caused to the former PM. He, too, might just be lying.
