Will Eagles dare to unseat weaselly Corbyn?

THE deadly attacks in Paris and Mali have shone an unforgiving light on Jeremy Corbyn and his weaselling approach to terrorism.

I am prepared to bet he has begun to seal his fate with the chin-stroking, holier-than-thou, fault-seeking view that he was ‘not happy’ about a shoot-to-kill policy for the likes of the guntoting purveyors of savagery who rained down bombs and bullets in the French capital.

Corbyn grows more isolated by the day. One MP describes his recent performances as ‘looking like a man still musing on the big, bad world in utter confusion’.

John Mann, a pugnacious Leftwinger, gave his boss a dressingdown over the comments regarding Islamic State. Mann’s niece had to hide in a toilet cubicle in Paris as attackers rampaged near her.

Two respected players putting pressure on Corbyn are the Eagle sisters, Maria and Angela. Both are Labour devotees of the old school and belong to the ‘soft Left’ of the fold: popular with the grass-roots, plain-spoken and unflashy. In the past week, the leadership’s antics have outraged both of them.

Maria, who defends the nuclear deterrent, was put in charge of a defence review to balance out Corbyn’s dedication to unilateral disarmament. A friend reveals she ‘discovered via a tweet’ that Ken Livingstone, another disarmer with no special knowledge of defence had been appointed her co-chairman.

At a Labour List dinner for loyalists, Angela earned loud cries of agreement when she pointedly referred to the Paris killers as ‘a nihilistic death cult’, rather then parroting excuses.

Desperate Labour MPs are, I gather, eyeing up Hilary Benn as a replacement if Corbyn throws in the towel or is ousted in the next year. Benn is no great tactician, but the Eagle sisters could help there. Both are junior champion chess players, with deep links across the party.

Together with a scion of the Benn dynasty, they just might find the way to checkmate Jezza.