Labour Party leadership shenanigans explained

According to The Guardian (here):

 It has been no secret that Jeremy Corbyn and his deputy, Tom Watson, do not get on that well. The Labour leader reckons Watson is too off message, and does his best to keep him at arm’s length. So much so that Watson wasn’t even given a speaking slot on the stage of the main hall. At a pre-conference meeting, Labour’s national executive committee had come up with a plan to limit Watson’s power by backing a motion for the election of a female co-deputy leader. Doubts began to creep in over the weekend when some on the NEC realised that giving someone like Angela Rayner, who had been one of the favourites, a bigger platform might be more of a threat to Corbyn’s leadership than was comfortable, but what really swung it was when Watson himself backed the election as he found being deputy leader rather lonely. Anything Watson supported had to be a bad idea, so the NEC instructed conference to vote against the plan it had originally backed. If Watson were to run a campaign saying “Please don’t make me leader”, he would probably be in with a chance of the top job.

It would be nice if, just occasionally, politicians spared a thought for the good of the country ...