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This has really been the most ill-conceived, ill-timed and farcical coup attempt since Cindy Beale hired a hitman to take out Ian and inherit the Eastenders chip shop.

It will not succeed. Jeremy Corbyn will be re-entrenched and there is a very strong likelihood Labour's parliamentary rebels will have to split to form their Labouralike, or face deselection in their constituencies.

By contrast, the Tories' frenzy of backstabbing looks almost mannered and sedate.

This attempted putsch has nothing whatsoever to do with Corbyn's referendum campaigning, since it has all been planned since he won the leadership election.

You would have imagined that with all the time they had to construct it that it might have been better timed and executed with a credible candidate.

The idea that Angela Eagle - who just days ago was praising Corbyn on Brexit and now seems to be poised on the brink of doubt - is a more trustworthy and believable leader for the party and the country just shows how opaque the view is from inside the Westminster bubble.

She is charisma-bypassed – which you could also say about Corbyn – but she is also the candidate who voted for the war in Iraq and against an inquiry into it, bombing Syria, for tuition fees and nuclear weapons.

Whatever the present leader lacks in on-screen dynamism, there's no doubting his politics, his beliefs and commitment, whatever you feel about them. And they happen to chime with the popular mood in the present party.

Cynics might characterise this as a contest between past and the distant past, the ideals of 1945 when Labour swept to power and created the welfare state embodied in Corbyn, whereas Eagle represents 1997 and the disasters that Tony Blair wrought on the country. At least Blair had a persuasive personality.

And why the great contumely and surprise that Corbyn won only 40 votes in the PLP confidence motion? That's four more than he got when he first stood as leader. I may have been off the day they did sums at school but that seems to be about a 12 per cent increase. And why launch the coup attempt now, to take the heat off the Tories just when they are in bits?

Well, they were always bent on removing Corbyn. The miscalculation appears to be that they thought Brexit and Cameron's demise would lead to a general election and they could put forward, if not a big beast, a middleweight growler like Andy Burnham, good looking and burnished by Hillsborough. Or Dan Jarvis, good looking and, well, good looking. Both have declined. Perhaps they have a better sense of deadly timing?

An original part of the strategy was that once they had a parliamentary majority they would go to the Speaker and claim to be the official opposition, thus garnering what's called the Short money which pays for the Labour parliamentary machine. But the SNP tried that on John Bercow and he told them where to go, that he recognised Labour and their leader as the opposition.

So if Eagle stands, while she may be a shoo-in at Westminster, can she win the wider membership? The answer is almost certainly an overwhelming no.

More than 16,000 new Corbynistas have joined the party in the last few days. The rebels now say they will launch a similar campaign to pull in right-wing £3 members, but are there any Blairites out there left standing? With their man about to be pilloried by Chilcot next week they'll surely be in bunkers in tin hats.

To quote Joe Stalin (which Corbyn would never do) when Churchill warned him to take heed of the Pope's influence in Eastern Europe: “How many divisions does the Pope have?”

The bookies may have got it wrong on Brexit, but they won't on this one.

So what is the future of the 172 Labour MPs who voted against their leader? Well if Eagle, or another of their candidates, is defeated then there seems no way a rapprochement could be constructed after, leaving them either to face reselection or to split to form a new party.

I think we've been here before.