ON THIS DAY IN 1976, CORBYN'S MATES...

The Provisional IRA murdered three British soldiers in a bomb attack in South Armagh.  At around 22:00 the troops were travelling in the lead vehicle of two army Land Rovers and were driving over a small stream near the village of Belleeks when the device was triggered.  The bomb was hidden in a culvert and blew their vehicle 20 feet downstream.  The three privates were killed instantly.  A fourth was seriously injured, but survived.  The second vehicle was not damaged.

The bomb was triggered via command wire leading to a hill overlooking the scene.  Between 300-400lbs of explosive had been packed into two milk churns and stuffed into the culvert.

All three of the victims belonged to the 1st Battalion Royal Scots Regiment and came from villages in Midlothian.  Pte David Ferguson was 20 and came from the village of Stoneyburn.  He was survived by his wife and child.  Pte Roderick Bannon was 25 and came from the village of Kirknewton.  He was also married and had a nine-month-old son.  Pte John Pearson was 23, single, and from the village of Newtongrange.

Their commanding officer paid tribute to the men, but said their deaths would not deter the army from protecting the community from sectarian attacks.  Lt Col Philip Davies said these were the regiment's first deaths in Northern Ireland and also the first soldiers to be killed by the IRA's South Armagh Brigade since the end of an IRA ceasefire two months earlier.  He added that the attack may have been in direct response to the sentencing of a South Armagh terrorist jailed in Belfast over the murders of four soldiers in July 1975.

LAVERY'S SINN FEIN SHAME

Labour Chairman Ian Lavery

If, as widely expected, Keir Starmer wins on Saturday, one of the frontbench casualties is likely to be the hapless Ian Lavery.  The ultra Corbyn loyalist was made Labour Chairman in 2017 and has gone on to embarrass himself and the party almost every time he opens his mouth.  Most recently he hit the headlines after calling coronavirus a "great opportunity" for Labour.  He also defended commie journalist Ash Sarkar after she was trolled online over a viral clip in which she joked that the white depopulation of London meant her people were "winning".

Piers Morgan has described Sarkar as "one of the most spiteful and vicious people on Twitter".  Yesterday she mocked the PM's adviser Dominic Cummings after news broke that he was displaying symptoms of Covid-19.  And yet here's Lavery attacking the people trolling her...

We won't go over the historical exploits of Lavery as they are too numerous, but recently we clocked a disgraceful low that had previously gone unnoticed.  One of the many Twitter accounts he follows is that of Republican Sinn Fein (see below).  This is not to be confused with the Sinn Fein of Mary Lou McDonald and Gerry Adams - no, that's bad enough - Republican Sinn Fein is linked to the Continuity IRA and does not recognise the Good Friday Agreement.  Since 2004 Republican Sinn Fein has been designated a 'terrorist organisation' by the US State Department.

As clear as day and in full view of the public, Lavery follows a group that supports physical resistance to the British state.  Disgusting.  He also follows McDonald's Sinn Fein, but he is not alone there.  The official Sinn Fein Twitter account is also followed by hard left Labour MPs like Louise Haigh, Grahame Morris, Bell Ribeiro-Addy and, naturally, Jeremy Corbyn himself.

The loss of loony lefties like Ian Lavery (and Richard Burgon) from the front bench will be a huge loss - to the Tories.  Diane Abbott has already confirmed she is standing down regardless of who wins and the status of Jeremy Corbyn after Saturday will be watched with intense interest.  Would Starmer dare send him to the back benches after Corbyn has made no secret of the fact he is desperate to remain on the front line?  If Sir Keir does send him packing it will put the hard left on a war footing.  They are not going to leave quietly.

HISTORY OF A LOSER: CORBYN 2016

In part two of our look back at Jeremy Corbyn's leadership we find the Labour leader struggling on two fronts.  The lifelong Eurosceptic is trapped in an overwhelmingly pro-EU party as the referendum looms.  The party adopts a Remain position, but MPs are free to campaign for either side.  A handful back Leave, but it's Corbyn's lack of enthusiasm for Remain that raises eyebrows.  When the referendum is lost, Corbyn is slammed and the following week he is subject to a humiliating vote of no confidence by MPs.  A leadership challenge follows, but he easily defeats challenger Owen Smith.  Corbyn's Momentum footsoldiers embark on a long-term mission to gain control of the party and purge his critics.

06.01.16 - The first of many reshuffles is a disaster as three frontbenchers resign in protest at the removal of Pat McFadden for 'disloyalty'.  McFadden had previously criticised Corbyn's response to Islamist terror attacks.

11.01.16 - Corbyn's Twitter account is hacked and various foul-mouthed tweets are posted, but the most famous remains the 'pie tweet'.

18.01.16 - Corbyn proposes non-nuclear submarines, a policy ridiculed in Christian Adams' cartoon in the Evening Standard

25.01.16 - Corbyn is chaperoned around a migrant camp by an open borders activist

25.01.16

02.02.16 - Corbyn takes a pop at scruffy parents

09.04.16 - The battle between Blairism and Corbynism continues

01.05.16 - Anti-Semitism begins to rear its head and Ken Livingstone is suspended

03.05.16

06.05.16 - There was no Corbyn surge in the local elections, the party failed to win a majority in the Welsh Assembly and there was a disastrous result in the Scottish Parliament election.  Labour shrunk even further behind the SNP and humiliatingly finished third, behind the Conservatives.

18.05.16

19.05.16

19.06.16

27.06.16 - We'll never know whether he did or not

28.06.16 - After Remain lost, MPs took revenge on Corbyn for his lacklustre effort and humiliated him in a vote of no confidence

30.06.16

11.07.16 - There were lots of famous resignations around this time and Corbyn was under immense pressure to follow suit

02.08.16 - Kez and Jez.  The Scottish Labour leader was another critic of Corbyn.

05.08.16

11.08.16 - It emerges that official Corbyn and Momentum t-shirts are made in Bangladeshi sweatshops

17.08.16 - The 'traingate' scandal.  Corbyn is mocked far and wide after he falsely claims the train carriage was 'ram-packed'.

18.08.16

19.08.16

26.08.16

07.09.16 - UB40 back Corbyn.  Well, some of them anyway.

24.09.16 - Corbyn romps home, but not everyone's impressed

09.10.16 - Corbyn's latest reshuffle is mocked as a north London clique

19.10.16 - Yvette Cooper never did take in any of the migrants she promised

25.10.16 - As the French begin to clear the so-called 'Calais jungle', Corbyn is there to promote the migrant cause

12.12.16

17.12.16

24.12.16

TOMORROW:  2017, a surprise election and a surprise result.

DIG FOR VICTORY

Labour's Luke Pollard

While most Britons would be all for closing our borders right now, one Labour MP is calling for an influx of people to fill fruit picking vacancies.  Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) is the Shadow Environment Secretary and says that tens of thousands of Europeans are required to pick fruit and veg in British fields.  Appearing on BBC Radio Devon and Sky News on Monday he urged the government to maintain the supply of workers from eastern Europe.

Asides from the obvious imminent threat of Covid-19, many have argued that instead of persistently looking to migrant workers we should be looking to homegrown workers to fill the vacancies.  After all who did all these jobs before 2004?  It's a valid point and if, as Pollard suggests, our shelves will be empty later this year it's an absolute must that farmers begin recruiting Brits.  What better time to do so?  Most Brits are currently stuck at home, earning little if anything while they wait for government handouts.  Many are climbing the walls with boredom and would surely relish the opportunity to get outside and earn some dough in the process.  And to those who all too easily write off our own people - we have just witnessed more than half a million people volunteer to assist the NHS in their hour of need.  Such commitment totally eclipses the 70,000 figure Pollard is talking about.

Is there any great surprise that Labour looks to migration to fix a problem we could and should be solving ourselves?  In any case, with most of Europe currently locked down, Pollard is also missing one crucial point - Romanians and Poles couldn't get here even if they wanted to.

MAGUIRE CALLS FOR (YET) ANOTHER ELECTION

In the last ten years we've had an astonishing four general elections - May 2010, May 2015, June 2017 and December 2019.  This is the most elections in any one decade since the 1970s when there were also four.  Now, due to the coronacrisis one left-wing journalist believes the reset button should be hit and yet another election should be held when this is all over.

Good Morning Britain regular Kevin Maguire argues that coronavirus renders the Conservative manifesto null and void.  He's not wrong there.  The economic woe and national debt resulting from this will mean the Tories cannot possibly honour their election pledges: "The political kaleidoscope is shaken again and when we’re unsure how the pieces will settle, the democratic argument is clear for another election to take instructions from the people".  Maguire clearly feels that Labour could be well placed to win an election following the crisis, but he should be careful what he wishes for.  

Recent opinion polls show the Tories are stretching even further ahead of Labour and as Maguire says so himself in his article: "Three Labour MPs I canvassed, smart politicians who will be in Starmer’s team, didn’t want one and are confident Tory record poll leads will drain away later when Johnson’s faults are scrutinised forensically on the other side of this apocalypse".  Maguire looks to the way Churchill was unceremoniously dumped from office at the end of the Second World War, but this is a lame argument for a Labour victory now.

The three most recent opinion polls for Westminster voting are as follows:

Opinium (26-27 March)

Con: 54% (+5)

Lab: 28% (-4)

L Dem: 6% (-)

Green: 3% (-2)

Sample size:  2,006

Number Cruncher (24-26 March)

Con: 54% (+11)

Lab: 28% (-5)

L Dem: 7% (-5)

Green: 4% (-1)

Sample size:  1,010

Ipsos MORI (13-16 March)

Con: 52% (+5)

Lab: 30% (-)

L Dem: 9% (-2)

Green: 4% (-1)

Sample size:  1,003

HISTORY OF A LOSER: CORBYN 2015

It's Jeremy Corbyn's final week as Labour leader and each day we will be looking back at his tenure through the medium of memes.  We begin with the year 2015, when Jezza romped home in the leadership election to succeed Ed Miliband.  Miliband resigned the day after the 2015 general election, with immediate effect, and was replaced by Harriet Harman as interim caretaker leader (note that Jezza is still leader four months after the 2019 general election).

In 2015 Corbyn was elected as leader on September 12, more than four months after the general election.  A four month leadership election?  Oh well, that much hasn't changed.

21.06.15 - Martin McGuinness, Jeremy Corbyn and Diane Abbott

14.07.15 - The four 2015 leadership candidates.  Little did we know that there would be two more general elections in the space of five years, but as Corbyn lost both of them this meme is not far from the truth.

23.07.15 - We wanted Corbyn to win the leadership, as did Hamas, Hezbollah, Sinn Fein, Russia, China, Argentina and Cuba.  For different reasons, obviously.

23.08.15 - There was little to unite Blairites and Corbynistas, almost tearing the party apart in the years that followed

12.09.15 - Hard left hypocrites like Billy Bragg were quick to congratulate Corbyn on his leadership victory

13.09.15 - Britain's enemies congratulate Corbyn on his leadership victory

14.09.15 - Corbyn's hatred of the British Army remains legendary

15.09.15 - One of the first of many scandals

19.09.15 - Tom Watson went on to spend most of his time as Deputy Leader undermining Corbyn, particularly on Brexit

21.09.15

28.09.15 - Jeremy's first conference as leader

02.10.15

01.11.15 - Angela Merkel's opening of the migration floodgates was welcomed by the left in Britain.  The protests in Visegrad countries were rather different

03.11.15 - News breaks that Corbyn referred to the British Army in Northern Ireland as an "army of occupation"

10.11.15

02.12.15 - Corbyn opposed bombing the Islamist death cult that had taken over large parts of Syria and Iraq.  When it came to a vote in the Commons, 66 of his own MPs sided with the government.  Cartoon by Peter Brookes for The Times.

04.12.15 - The Oldham West & Royton by-election was an easy hold for Labour, although it was dogged by claims of postal vote fraud among the town's Muslim population

22.12.15 - Corbyn invites the new US President to Finsbury Park Mosque.  His friendly approach to Donald Trump would quickly subside.

Hopefully, over the course of the next few days you will see how we got better at memes over the last five years...

TOMORROW:  2016, Corbyn's first full year as leader, the EU referendum and a challenge to his crumbling leadership.