We’ll only win votes with unity

LABOUR could not have had a worse start to its party conference in Brighton.

With a General Election round the corner, a few extremists attempted to sack Tom Watson by abolishing the post of deputy leader, which he holds.

That sends the signal to the voters that Labour is not just a disunited party, but a vicious one too.

Fortunately, Jeremy Corbyn was on hand to defuse the mess Labour’s national executive got itself into.

And in an exclusive Sunday Mirror interview today, the Labour leader says he wants two deputies in future – one a woman.

That papers over a few cracks, but it does not shore up the broad church Labour must be if it is to appeal to enough voters to win a General Election.

We believe a Labour government is in the best interests of Sunday Mirror readers.

And Labour should be wiping the floor with the Tories now that they’re fighting a full-blown civil war.

Yet polls only put Mr Corbyn’s party a point ahead of the Liberal Democrats.

So Mr Corbyn should have three priorities this week in Brighton.

Unity, unity, unity.

THERE are certain countries we would not be surprised to learn had locked up an 80-year-old woman for 30 hours after surviving a suicide pact.

Or charged her with murder. Or forced her to face the agony of a trial for ending her husband’s excruciating pain.

But we would not expect that country to be Britain. Yet that is exactly what happened to Mavis Eccleston, cleared by Stafford Crown Court last week.

Assisted dying is a tricky issue. This newspaper is not in favour of making it legal.

What we are in favour of is treating those involved with compassion, understanding and common sense.

That means in a case like Mavis’s, it should be ruled that it is not in the public interest to prosecute.

And the boneheads who did so should be ashamed.

THE Red Devils are certainly a tough lot.

And equally tough is 97-year-old Arnhem veteran Sandy Cortmann.

The last time he parachuted over the Dutch landing zone 75 years ago, he was being shot at by Nazis who captured him.

This time, his jump – strapped to a Red Devils parachutist – went off without a hitch. So much so he wants to do it again next year. Good for you, Sandy. Be a devil. Again.