Only the Labour party could have two MPs battling to the death to become the unity candidate to challenge Jeremy Corbyn for the leadership. And only the Labour party could be so inept – or devious – in its timetabling that the only chance the country would get to see the two challengers go head to head against each other was for a few minutes on the migraine-inducing tangerine sofa of the Andrew Marr show. The best that could be said of it, from Angela Eagle and Owen Smith’s point of view, was that the programme was broadcast at 9am and only a few political geeks and insomniacs would have witnessed their embarrassment.
Marr began by giving each candidate five minutes on their own to set out their stall. Angela was first up and looked understandably nervous. Every time she has tried to launch her campaign over the past 10 days something has happened to make sure she gets interrupted, and she looked as if she was expecting her interview to be curtailed with the news that the Turks had now attempted a coup against the Foreign Office after reading Boris Johnson’s bridge-building limerick comparing President Erdoğan to a goat shagger.
“Let’s start with Scotland,” said Marr. “Where do you stand on a second independence referendum?” Eagle twisted shiftily on the sofa, as if this was something to which she had given no thought whatsoever. “What Scotland has to remember,” she replied hesitantly, “is that London and Liverpool also voted against withdrawal from the EU and they are aren’t going to get a second referendum.” And what Eagle needed to remember was that London and Liverpool are cities and that Scotland is a country. Geography clearly not a strong point.
Eagle also struggled on Libya. The reason she had voted with the government to launch strikes against Gaddafi was that we were part of an international alliance and it seemed like a good idea at the time. Marr pointed out that it had ended with much the same results as the invasion of Iraq. “It’s not so bad as all that,” she muttered, trying hard not to suggest that Momentum had done far more damage to the Labour party.
A relative newcomer to the game, Smith had spent the morning mugging up on Sun Tzu’s Art of War for Dummies. Unfortunately, he appeared to have turned over a couple of pages in a hurry and was under the impression that the best way to confuse your enemies was to confuse yourself. “I will definitely vote for the renewal of Trident,” he said, “and I would be definitely, definitely up for pushing the button and wiping out millions of people though obviously I am totally against any country having nuclear weapons.”
“Keep digging, Owen,” Marr said. Smith was only too happy to oblige. “It’s very tempting to say I would say I wouldn’t invoke article 50 but it’s not a binary choice.” Smith likes to keep the “I’m sorry I haven’t a clue” option open. “What I would say is that I would do some negotiating now but not on a definite path.”
While the minders manoeuvred Eagle and Smith into sitting next to each other for their auto da fé, Marr used the dead time to chat to the new education secretary, Justine Greening. Never has dead time been deader. Greening appeared utterly terrified of saying a word of any substance in case the new Madam Stalin at Number 10 reshuffled her before the weekend was out, and her greatest insight was that universities had two issues: staff and students. Nothing is going to get past her.
Then came the hustings. Eagle said she was best because she was a working-class woman. Smith said he wasn’t a woman but he was younger and that he was pro-austerity and pro-prosperity. Would either stand down and support the other in a leadership contest against Jeremy Corbyn to avoid splitting the moderate vote? Both agreed it was far too early in the campaign to make that sort of decision. That was too early as in 24 hours too early, as the hustings before the parliamentary Labour party is on Monday afternoon. They’d better get thinking fast.
Jeremy Corbyn must have been watching this and loving it. If this was the best the Labour party could throw up he was nailed on to be re-elected. Neither Eagle nor Smith dared touch on the crucial point that Corbyn is totally unelectable in a general election and that the Labour party needed to open its eyes wider than its 400,000 members and look to the 15 million people it needs to form a government. On this showing the real unity candidate would be the one saying: “I’m not Eagle, Smith or Corbyn.” The bar really is that low.
