SO, AS WE SUSPECTED, JEREMY WON

AND WITH AN INCREASED MAJORITY...

...Despite the purge of anyone suspect, including people who had been members for over 50 years. So first off, Congratulations Mr Corbyn.

SO NOW WHERE TO?

Where does this leave Labour?

And for us in Scotland, perhaps more importantly, where does that leave Kezia?

Will the rebels accept the 'settled will' of the membership, or what's left of it now it has been purged? Or will there be another rebellion next year? 

And will they, this time, find someone a little more credible to put up as leader? (With respect neither Eagle nor Smith seemed to me to be remotely likely to win a general election. Both were decidedly third rate.) 

But there are potential leaders on the right of Labour, not least Hilary Benn or the guy that lost to Ed Miliband, his brother, David. Will someone like Benn be prepared to put himself forward, for possible humiliation, against a man who has twice won with massive majorities,  in a party that seems to be set on returning to a left of centre politics? And would Miliband give up his massive salary in New York to possibly be humiliated again and be left as a mere MP on a fraction of what he now earns?

Or will the right wingers leave Labour and elect their own leader as New Labour, or even New Improved Labour? (Now don't laugh. Persil has been doing it for years.) Possibly leaving the current Labour party as a rump, while New Sparkling Labour forms the official opposition, but with few members and no money.

Will Kezia be saved by the apparent fact that Scotland was the only "region" to vote for Smith? Or by the fact that in an amazing volte-face, she now thinks he's the man to lead Labour to a UK election win?

And what will happen to the ex-Shadow Secretary of State? Will he, like his boss, (*is she his boss or is Jeremy his boss?) suck up to the man they think is a disaster, or will he remain a rebel and maybe even stand himself next year? (Well we all need a laugh!) 

* Quick question to Niko: If Labour in Scotland has autonomy, and they disagree about something, what does the ex-SoS do as Scotland's only Labour MP? Is he whipped with English and Welsh MPs or as a Scottish MP of Kezia?

Kez's speech put a brave face on it, but clearly, as the pictures show, her heart isn't in it. 

How long will all this mess last and what will be the outcome?

Over to the brilliance of Munguin's readership...

DODGY DAVE

It's a funny old world, isn't it?

One in which when the SNP clap in Westminster, it is wrong and disrespectful and Mr Speaker gets quite schoolmarmish about it and tells then that while they may have meant well, they haven't yet been in England long enough to understand the different way they do things...properly. 

So whilst it is not considered bad manners to boo and roar and wave papers in the air and behave like a bunch of 6 year olds whose teacher has popped out of the room for a second, it is extremely bad manners, uncouth and beastish to clap...as one might do at, say, the opera.

Then a few weeks later when a some members stick a knife in Willie Hague's back while he is trying to stick one in the back of the Speaker, on Cameron's orders, and the Speaker comes out smiling, while Willie Hague's last act in the House of Commons is to be resoundingly humiliated, it suddenly has become good manners to clap and all is well in the world.

And it seems to stay like that. Because not long after that Blairite Hilary Benn makes a warmongering speech, going against his party leader's stance on war in Syria (one we can neither afford nor win), it's all Tory hands to the clap again. Note, it's the last few minutes of the video that you'll want, containing clapping and the embarrassing praise from Hammond of Benn's speech. The rest is too awful for words.

Now Munguin isn't a betting animal but he reckons a pound to a pinch of snuff that if the SNP try clapping again, it will have reverted to boorishness, and not the behaviour expected of gentlemen of the Hon, Rt Hon, Learned or Gallant persuasion.

So it shouldn't come as any great surprise to any of our readers that when David Cameron insulted Dennis Skinner a few months ago by telling him he could take his pension at any time, and indeed he advised him to do so, rude and ungentlemanly behaviour to a man with more experience than Mr Cameron will ever have, and who is old enough to be Cameron's father, nothing was said about it.

 And he has form. Here he called Mr Skinner a dinosaur.

However, when Mr Skinner said that Dave was dodgy, an understatement of mammoth proportions in anyone's terms (given that he clearly lied all week about his gains from offshore investments), Skinner was told to retract, and when he refused,  to leave the chamber.

Rather like the subject of the business, there seems to be one rule for some, and one rule for the rest.

Does anyone seriously think that Dave isn't dodgy? or the Commons corrupted?

SOME RANDOM THOUGHTS....

Audition for a horror film?

The speech sounded like Tony Blair, or his people, wrote it.

It's pretty logical, isn't it?

However, because British Bombs are dropped with British Values, they won't cause any problems at all. And they are so clever, these bombs, that they know not to kill innocent children.

Or peace, really?

People say the Qur'an is full of violence and hate, and there's a lot of that in it, but no so much as in the Bible, it seems.

Syria: Not going to win any tourist prizes, is it?
Bound to make them tow the line though, huh?
I mean it would work here wouldn't it?

Well, of course it wasn't. Christians don't kill millions of Jews, disabled people, homosexuals nor do they idealise exclusively blond super people, but it's worth remembering that when muddle headed morons like Trump demonise all Muslims. "You ain't no Muslim, bro".
Someone might have said to Hitler: "Sie sind kein Christ, Bruder"

Not-so-smart bombs, clearly dropped by anyone other
than Mr Fallon's team.

Led by the BBC. That bastion of decency and fairness.
How are the charter renewal negotiations with the English Culture Secretary going? 

That's a thought...

That's the kind of face you get, if you lived the kind of life he led.

Serves the bastard right.

Oh ...and veterans have been protesting about the war by throwing their medals back at Downing Street, but strangely, there appears to have been very little coverage of it on the BBC. (As I don't watch tv, I've relied on Twitter for this information. But I've checked and there is nothing in their website at the time of writing).

Medals returned to Downing Street...

THEY'VE DONE IT: PUNCHING ABOVE THEIR WEIGHT TO THE GATES OF HELL

Oh well, it is done... The British Empire is yet again at war.

And how they cheered and they clapped, although clapping used to be, or so we were told, discourteous. Perhaps we misunderstood, and it's only discourteous when second class members of the house of Commons do it. Fine when Eton and Oxford Toffs do it.

So, they voted with their consciences, and that's all you can say. And if or rather when, it all goes wrong, I hope their consciences are strong enough to take it. it's on their shoulders.

As Alex Salmond said (see Wings article), there were many good speeches. I was impressed by people who were asking why, as Salmond and Corbyn did, we weren't trying to deny Daesh their finance, their weapons, their communications systems. People from opposition and government benches alike.

At the end of the debate in scenes that will be broadcast around the world, people saw our Hooray Henrys cheering and shouting for joy because they're off to kill people from the Middle East again. Well not them obviously... the plebs do that for them.

I suspect that this scene may be used in the recruitment material of the Daesh movement. 

Scotland voted 57-2 NOT to go to war, but hey ho...there we are again pooling and sharing the vast financial expense of punching above our weight while our people queue up at food banks and our OAPs have the second worst pension in the developed world, leading to deaths for malnutrition and hypothermia. And now we'll also have to pool and share death and destruction.

I'm not sure at the moment how Wales or Northern Ireland voted, but I know that this is not being done in Scotland's name. Of that much I'm proud. 

Of the rest I am deeply deeply ashamed.

STOP THE WAR

I watched both Jeremy Corbyn and Stewart Hosie on the Marr show today. I thought both of them made perfect sense.

If the United Nations means to tell countries that they can bomb Syria, then they should leave them in no doubt that that is the resolution of organisation's aim.

There was the same sort of situation over the Iraq war with the English Attorney General telling Blair first that the resolution passed DID NOT and then, two days later, DID authorise military action. 

It was never totally clear but with the passage of time it seems to have been agreed that the war was illegal.

If there is no doubt about the intention this time, let us have confirmation in a proper resolution authorising war.

Fallon, on the same programme, gave a performance that was described here by Craig Murray. His interview was a tissue of lies, start to finish and far less plausible than either of the two opposition parties.

The ex-Ambassador to Syria has also rubbished the claims of the government.

War should never be contemplated until every other possibility has been explored and attempted. And even then, it should be remembered that it comes with consequences, and massive expense in terms on people's lives and of course money, which we are told we don't have. Involvement will surely bring retaliation...and why wouldn't it?

As Stewart suggested, why don't we follow the money, and the oil; cut the supply chain, which I would bet we are a part of (we export billions of pounds worth of weapons to Saudi every year, and have done so for a very long time. Until they started slaughtering the population of Yemen recently they seem not have used the weapons...)

Isil doesn't manufacture sophisticated weaponry...what would they do if they couldn't get any more guns; any more ammunition?

War, any war, is indescribably terrible and will always have repercussions. It must be the very very last resort. 

Don't read any further if you have a weak stomach. A couple of these photographs are pretty graphic. But this is what war does.

There are some very big business names that will do nicely from another war.

Send Cameron to fight one to one with the head of Isil?

Amazingly, there are members of the shadow cabinet who want to use this situation to get rid of Jeremy Corbyn.

Who supplies ISIL?
Who's regime is closest to Isil's?
And who supplies them with arms?

It's not unfair or unreasonable that those who want war should go fight it.
Same here. They can line up behind  Cameron.

Of course, few in the PLP give a stuff about what conference for the membership think. That's why they are so angry with Corbyn for asking them.

The ridiculous claims that no civilians would be injured are farcical and insult our intelligence. Have they forgotten that we read Twitter and Facebook?

And what about the refugees we will create as we bomb cities to the ground?

Fallon, Cameron and Benn may not mind having this on their consciences. I do.

You must be ashamed to Hilary, Tony

Even Tory Matthew Parris agrees.