Peter Rhodes on the dangers of deselection, a Brummie voice in the Commons and the brutal days of the gallows

IT IS one thing to threaten a rebellious MP with deselection, as is happening in the Brexit row. It is quite another thing actually to carry out the threat, sack the Member and replace him/her with a new, obedient candidate to toe the line and fight the next election. There is a long history of deselected MPs not retiring gracefully but standing under the Independent banner. They may not win the seat but they divide the vote. And the result then is that the new MP is neither your rebellious old comrade nor your obedient new candidate but some double-barreled toff from 100 miles away who can barely pronounce your constituency and cannot believe their luck.

A READER has compiled a list of the 106 poor souls who were hanged at Stafford Prison between 1793 and 1914. It makes the grim point that even non-violent crimes such as forgery and counterfeiting coins could lead to the rope back then. I was surprised to see one man was hanged for bestiality. I thought the traditional punishment for bestiality was to give 'em the cat.

I CAN'T be the only person astonished at the durability of Jess Phillips' Brummie accent. The Labour MP for Yardley whose punchy speech on pay and ability went viral, is a fine, popular and blisteringly effective politician and we need more like her. But she was never exactly a daughter of toil; Dad was a teacher, Mom an NHS executive. Young Jess attended a fine grammar school where you might expect young Brummies to be taught to spake proper. Furthermore, she had the blessed gift of three years in God's Country, studying at Leeds University, a city where, as everybody knows, the finest English is spoken. For the past three years she has been totally immersed in Westminster. So how has that Brummie accent of hers survived so much education, polish and travel? Why, when so many Birmingham professionals mellow their tones, does Jess Phillips sound like a knife-grinder's mate from Peaky Blinders? It is all very puzzling.

I WONDER if perhaps the MP has two accents, one for special occasions, the other for normal use. My mother did. She spoke perfectly ordinary English at home but whenever we visited her native Yorkshire she'd suddenly start saying things like "Eeh, I'm fair thrapped like a thrupenny bobbin," to the puzzlement of family and Yorkshire folk alike.

I HAD a message this week saying Sgt Joe has died. He was an NCO in my old TA unit, an Ulsterman and a weapons expert with a rollocking sense of humour. Joe was always laughing, usually at himself and even when illness confined him to a wheelchair. In his prime he kept us safe on the rifle ranges and enlivened proceedings with his private collection of weapons. He once spent a patient hour instructing me on a 100-year-old Colt revolver. Unless you were a boy born in the 1950s and raised on Bronco Lane, you may not appreciate what a privilege that was.