HARRY COLE: How Labour just loves keeping it in the family 

Forlorn Labour deputy leader candidate Richard Burgon proudly unveiled his parliamentary bag carrier last week – Luton South MP Rachel Hopkins.

They’re a snug fit as both hold safe seats, both are members of the Corbynista socialist Campaign Group and both have politics in their blood. 

Burgon’s uncle and Hopkins’s father were long-serving Labour MPs. Once the preserve of the Tories, nepotism has taken hold in the Labour Party.

House of Commons research shows that one in ten Labour MPs are related or married to another MP, whereas the figure is just six per cent for the Conservatives. 

John Cryer, Labour MP for Leyton and Wanstead, has followed in mum and dad’s footsteps, while his wife, Ellie Reeves is an MP, too. 

Another member of this Westminster family is Ellie’s sister, Rachel, joining long-standing Labour MP sisters Maria and Angela Eagle.

Not forgetting husband-and-wife duo Harriet Harman and Jack Dromey and the scions of the Miliband, Kinnock and Vaz dynasties. 

Leadership contender Lisa Nandy’s grandfather was an MP, as were two of Bootle-born Peter Dowd’s great-uncles. 

Hilary Benn – a fourth-generation MP – boasts the richest heritage, though Harman can trump him as great-great-niece of Victorian radical Joseph Chamberlain.

Up the workers!

Is the British Establishment finally getting over its Brexit bloody nose? A missive from Oxford University’s Vice-Chancellor, Louise Richardson, suggests so. 

She told teary colleagues: ‘It is, perhaps, worth remembering that this university thrived long before we joined the EU and we will continue to thrive after our departure, however reluctantly we leave. 

‘The development of the University of Oxford accelerated when Henry II of France banned English scholars from attending the University of Paris in the 12th Century. 

‘Let us all work together to ensure that we can overcome any contemporary impediments…’ 

Project Fear no more! 

With his chances of becoming Shadow Foreign Secretary looking increasingly slim, what next for Jeremy Corbyn? I hear he cut a merry figure as quizmaster at the Tavern in his Islington North constituency last week. 

The luvvie crowd included Homeland star Damian Lewis. 

‘It was the happiest Jeremy has looked in years,’ a punter tells me. 

‘His homemade jam was the prize.’ 

Vain hunt for non-binary MPs 

Woke Westminster’s virtue-signalling stepped up a gear last week as the Commons website launched a new feature, pictured. 

It allows the public to search for MPs using a category for those who do not identify as male or female but who are ‘non-binary’ – someone who does not use their assigned gender. 

When you opt for this, a message pops up: ‘No Members were found for the search criteria specified.’ 

Makes you wonder why they bothered. 

Not only was Boris Johnson furious about garrulous briefings that emerged from Downing Street about ‘pruning’ the BBC to the point of abolition, I hear the so-called ‘Garden Girls’ who answer No 10’s phones were rather grumpy, too. 

So many BBC TV viewers rang to complain that the system jammed and an automated message had to be recorded. 

It said: ‘You have reached the Downing Street switchboard. If you are calling regarding the Save Our BBC petition, please press 1.’ 

Callers then heard a grovelling message apologising that the ‘Prime Minister cannot take your call personally’ – as if he had just popped out – and politely suggested writing instead.