This man is a liability to British politics. His pronouncements make no sense at all and his local party should remove him – to prevent him from doing harm.

Labour lost a council seat in Coulby Newham, a well-to-do Middlesbrough ward that borders on another even more wealthy part of town and one that has always had a substantial Tory vote.

Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland Labour MP since 2010, Tom Blenkinsop is one of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s most entrenched opponents – and … lost no time at all in trying to pin the blame for the loss on Corbyn [see the image above].

Here’s the thing – Coulby Newham is in Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland. Blenkinsop’s own constituency.

Leaving aside any questions of the biased media coverage that the people of Coulby Newham might see or hear, having an MP who’s not only so unpleasant but who also never wastes an opportunity to talk down his party’s electability might have a lot more to do with a loss in a well-off area.

Labour’s defeated candidate, Annalise Higgins, to judge by her Twitter feed, is a very nice woman. But that same Twitter feed contains not one mention of the Labour leader – nor, for that matter, of the Labour Party.

Given the complete absence of Corbyn from her discourse, it’s highly unlikely that he played a significant role in her defeat – and certainly nothing like as significant as the impact of having an awful MP who’s held in contempt even by the majority of his local Labour members.