DANNY Beales, Theo Blackwell, the outgoing Maeve McCormack and council leader Sarah Hayward were among the first to tweet congratulations to Marcus Boyland after he was picked to the stand in the Gospel Oak by-election this weekend. He was chosen for the May 4 ballot ahead of Maddy Rahman, whose long perseverance in trying to win a seat on the council was overlooked this time, and Suncica Mandich.

One lefty wag at yesterday’s meeting puts it like this: “If our share of it goes up, then it will be down to a brilliant local campaign and a fantastic candidate… if it goes down it’ll be all Corbyn’s fault”. Political lols aside, though, most people saw yesterday’s selection meeting as a process in which the party was not only a candidate but a councillor too, and Marcus is seen from within as a strong candidate.

All of this, however, has yet to burst the bubble of enthusiastic Conservative candidate Marx De Morais, who this weekend tweeted a picture of himself in the bath…