One war-weary Labour old stager just sent Labour Uncut a text message from an idle moment.  It was one of those absent, unsolicited little updates that the Twitter-literate now do without thinking.

On this occasion, quite without realising how quickly he’d become accustomed to a new world which is mad, this MP described himself as “sitting in the IPSA queue with several other MPs”.

That’s what they do these days.  Between legislating and agitating and holding the executive to account.  They sit in the IPSA queue.

It is wrong to imagine that the House of Commons is awash with leadership scuttlebutts.  For most MPs, the future of the left is a subject that hardly comes up.

It is the war between MPs of all parties and the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority which takes up most time in the tea room.

A particularly amusing salvo is reproduced below.  The MP in question blind copied his email to all other MPs.  A move akin, in information management terms, to taking out a full page advertisement in the Times.  Notwithstanding which, we have withheld his name, in a spirit of restraint and discretion. (more…)