A look at Labour’s London line-up

The open primary to choose the 2016 Labour candidate for London Mayor is a dot on horizon; but speculation is underway. Mr Steerpike has been reading the form.

Tessa Jowell, the former Olympics minister and outgoing MP for Dulwich, had a busy festive period: turning on the waterworks and displaying signs of Tourettes in this Guardian interview. Here is what she said in response to a question about those pressmen who say that her estrangement from her husband David Mills during his run-in with the Italian courts was manufactured:

‘Frankly, you know, those arseholes are so fucking rancid that I just hope every morning they wake up and think: ‘I’m ashamed of the job I do.’ To say that somehow I got up one morning and thought, ‘You know what I’m going to do today, I think I’m going to separate from my husband?’ Fuck off. There was a toe rag who slept in his little white van outside my house for six days, and it was doing my head in by the end of it.