Labour in a bit of a lamb stew...

THE FRIDAY THING: DOES all this to-ing and fro-ing from Labour’s four political musketeers mean anything to most of us, or anything even to die-hard Labourites?

There are plenty of good people who consider the crisis in North Yorkshire, where sheep by the thousand have been rustled by masked men with big white vans, more important.

If the Labour team had had anything about it, it would have put the leadership scrap on the back burner and focused on the shortages that will grip devotees of lamb chops.

Surely lamb and mint sauce are pretty high on most Labour supporters’ menu choices. And aren’t sheep dogs more attractive than any politician - including Harriet Harman, Liz Kendal and certainly Andy Burnham and the ghostly presence of the scary Jeremy Corbyn?

What Labour really needs at this time of the great sheep crisis is a Tony Hancock or Captain Mainwaring character from “Dads’ Army”. It does all have the sense of a farce or a game.

And Andy Burnham has not done himself any favours with the ladies with his off-the-cuff comments about Labour only having a female leader “when the time is right”.

He will never have a career in the diplomatic service and will probably find that the Labour women are tougher than upstart male politicians, or even sheep thieves.