Is Angela Eagle more "electable" than Jeremy Corbyn?

It's now absolutely clear that a large majority of Labour MPs have completely lost touch with reality.

Brexit was a massive Tory disaster. Indisputably their biggest cock up in decades. Stuff like Black Wednesday dwindles into insignificance in comparison to the Prime Minister gambling the entire future of the UK in order to win a bit od short-term political advantage at the 2015 General Election, losing the bet and then announcing his resignation the next day, leaving the Tory party rudderless and the country in a bizarre state of limbo as the hopelessly divided Tory government decide to further infuriate the remaining 27 EU member states by announcing that they're going to delay the start of the EU withdrawal process for as long as they can get away with, because they don't actually have anything remotely resembling a sensible plan of action for what comes next.

The Labour response to this gaping open goal was not to unite in condemnation, furiously demand answers and begin explaining a clear Labour Party strategy for what should come next, but to immediately descend into outright civil war.

It's now absolutely clear that the anti-democratic coup attempt against Jeremy Corbyn was pre-planned. The Blairites behind it were so confident of success that they even briefed the Daily Telegraph about what they were going to do 10 days before the EU referendum result was even announced.

The Labour MPs who have participated in this coup attempt have inflicted enormous damage on the party. They saw the Tory party struggling in a deep hole of their own digging, but instead of aiming their concentrated fire at the stricken Tories, they gave them a helping hand to climb out and then kicked their own party down there in their place. By drawing the media spotlight away from the Tory chaos and onto Labour Party infighting they completely squandered the biggest party political advantage they've had in years.

These clueless Labour MPs were obviously so giddy with excitement at getting rid of their democratically elected leader, that they completely neglected to think about the bigger picture.

When the orchestrated "blitz" of resignations and the storm of negative newsbites about Corbyn fed to the mainstream media by some shady Blairite PR company failed to dislodge Corbyn, they were left with no choice but to call an unconstitutional vote of no confidence in the hope that Corbyn would resign in shame. But again he stood firm against a spectacular display of treachery against their own leader, the membership who elected him, and the entire labour movement.

The Labour Party constitution dictates that an incumbent leader automatically gets to stand in a leadership contest if they want to, so Corbyn will stand, which is a disaster for the Blairites.

In the last leadership election Corbyn won 60% of the vote in a four horse race! Since then his popularity amongst Labour members has soared and he's attracted so many new people into the party that it's literally doubled in size (only a Blairite could consider a doubling of the party membership to be disastrous!).

If the Parliamentary Labour Party want to defeat Jeremy Corbyn in a democratic election, they're going to have to pick someone truly magnificent from their pack to even stand the remotest chance of beating him, which brings us most inappropriately to Angela Eagle.

The PLP can clearly only field one candidate against Corbyn because they can't afford to split the vote, and the "unity" candidate they appear to have selected is Angela Eagle.

People may be forgiven for not knowing much/anything about her. After all, few people had heard of Jeremy Corbyn before his meteoric rise from the backbenches to the Labour Party leader with the biggest mandate in history in just a matter of months.

One of the most important things to note is that Angela Eagle voted in favour of the catastrophic invasion and occupation of Iraq, and then repeatedly voted against an independent inquiry about it. This is no surprise. Apparently they looked for a candidate without Iraqi blood on their hands, but found that all of them were actually in Jeremy Corbyn's shadow cabinet!

Another important thing to note is that Angela Eagle has got no appreciation of the bigger picture. If she'd had any strategic sense whatever she would have pleaded with the Blairites to hold off their coup attempt at least until the public narrative had been set that the Tories were to blame for Brexit. Had she played it that way she could have made as big a show as possible of attacking the Tories, then when the pre-planned coup against Corbyn was launched, she could have pointed out that it was her, and not Corbyn landing all the heavy punches on the Tories.

Instead of playing it strategically she was as giddy as the rest of the Labour Party career politicians who have more in common with the Tories they pretend to oppose than with the Labour Party members and voters they pretend to represent.

In fact she was so giddy with excitement that she made herself look spectacularly insincere in her resignation letter. Within two weeks of praising Corbyn for "pursuing an itinerary that would make a 25-year-old tired" she was slamming him for making the case for Remain "with half hearted ambivalence". The sheer insincerity of such a volte face would be astounding if she was anyone but a professional politician, and stands in stark contrast to Jeremy Corbyn's track record of honesty.

Another interesting thing to note about Angela Eagle is that she has virtually no social media presence. She has just 13,300 odd Facebook followers compared to Jeremy Corbyn's 688,300+. To put Eagle's paltry social media following into perspective a bit, Corbyn has picked up 34,000+ new Facebook followers in just the last week. 

Anyone who thinks social media is some kind of fad with no impact on modern politics is hopelessly out of touch. Of course Eagle will have the mainstream media on her side, but Corbyn will absolutely annihilate her in social media reach.

Another thing to note about Angela Eagle is an appalling foot in mouth moment that is bound to come back and haunt her if she ever makes it past Corbyn and faces the Tories and the right-wing press in a General Election. 

In April 2008 when working as Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury she made a howler every bit as bad as Liam Byrne's ludicrous "there's no money" note (if not worse because what she said wasn't even intended as a poorly considered joke). Eagle's response to Liberal Democrat concerns that the UK was experiencing a housing bubble was to dismiss those concerns as "a colourful and lurid fiction that has no real bearing on the macroeconomic reality". 

We all now know what was actually going on in 2007-08; how property prices crashed; and the financial sector ended up being rescued from complete insolvency which resulted in the biggest state sector interventions in history being handed out by her government. It's absolutely clear that if anyone in had no understanding of "the macroeconomic reality" back in April 2008 it was clearly Angela Eagle.

One final and important point is that just ten months ago Angela Eagle stood in the Labour Party deputy leadership election and finished fourth out of five candidates. It's absolutely incredible that a bunch of people who have been constantly smearing Jeremy Corbyn as "unelectable" have suddenly decided that a woman who practically nobody has heard of and who came nowhere near competing for the Labour party Deputy Leadership just ten months ago, will somehow be more electable than he is!

Angela Eagle is a strategically inept, insincere, gaffe-prone, Iraq invasion supporting career politician who has virtually no public or social media profile (despite being an MP for 24 years) and who could only finish fourth in the Labour Party deputy leadership election just 10 months ago.

Apparently there are a load of Labour MPs who think that Eagle has what it takes to beat Jeremy Corbyn in a re-run of the Labour leadership election. And then, if she somehow manages that, go on to beat Boris Johnson/Theresa May (and the Tory media machine) in a snap General Election, even after driving disgusted voters, members and (most importantly) activists away from the Tony Blair Party in their droves.

These people are so clearly out-of-touch with reality it's bizarre.

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