Well what "subject" did you mean, John, when you said they were "shooting their mouths off" if it wasn't antisemitism? You said it was the subject (among others) that precipitated Labour's disastrous defeat. The subject that the two women were "shooting their mouths off" about was the dirty dealings between US police and the Israeli secret service. That is not the antisemitism issue that helped Labour to lose, except in the minds of the duplicitous. In fact, it is not antisemitism at all. By conflating that with antisemitism ("the subject," as you said), you have got into bed with the right of the party and the Board Of Deputies. Game, set and match to them, until the next time... Fair-minded lefties tried for years to defend Corbyn against bogus and hypocritical accusations of his being complicit with alleged antisemites in the party. So now we've accepted that his adversaries have been right all the time and that we can add Rebecca and Maxine to the long list of Labour antisemites, have we? Jim's spot on. There's little point trying to elect one unprincipled git to replace another unprincipled git. Still, four years is a long time in politics. Just don't delude yourself that this kind of move will make Starmer more electable. The left are a key part of Labour and always have been, and this kind of disreputable dealing won't make them go away.

Maybe from now on there'll be a spineless sign up in the shadow cabinet meeting room: "Whatever you do, never mention Israel..."