Chuka Umunna and the Liberal Democrats

No sooner have Change UK put themselves to bed, along comes Chuka Umunna with some not-so-shocking news. Within days of announcing the formation of, um, a new formation, Mail Online has it that he's set to join the Liberal Democrats. Considering the contempt he and his CHUKa kin held the LibDems in when their little party was founded, he's gone from sneer to cheer at a million miles an hour, putting even the SWP to shame with his unashamed opportunism.

There are some question marks over whether the LibDems would want him and his pathetic bandwagon. Heidi Allen and Sarah Wollaston would fit right in, as I suppose Luciana Berger would. They're gormless enough to cut forgettable figures on the yellow benches. But Angela Smith? Gavin Shuker? Don't be silly, of course they would be greeted with open arms, though it's a shame I can't be a fly on the wall when they learn about the mandatory reselection procedures the party employs.

Taking on these no hopers isn't cost free for the LibDems. As a relatively cohesive bloc within the parliamentary party (now only at 11 MPs), they could prove disruptive. We know it wouldn't be long before their deliberations are leaked to the lobby hacks, not that any of them will find an editor who cares enough to give them column inches. And despite the bruising humiliation of Change UK, a "party" built in his image, with his politics, and even uses his bloody name in abbreviation, how long is going to be before Chuka feels the LibDem leadership is his by divine right? Fat lot of good it will do him mind. CHUK's dismal record shows he and his comrades don't know the first thing about organising and so perhaps, after all, the LibDems - which you will remember is a proper party with a proper membership - could handle such interlopers from elsewhere.

And the advantages? A few more seats fits the evolving recovery narrative (the locals, the euros), and if Chuka and friends settle in nicely, the prospect of more defectors from Labour and the Conservatives can't be ruled out, especially if someone rancid wins the leadership race.

There is another too. Out of all the seats Chuka and friends have a shout of holding is Heidi Allen's Cambridge seat, and jolly old Streatham. As Ravi observes, Chuka is a remain MP in a heavily remain seat, has the advantage of incumbency and will have the party label of the remain party appended to him. Labour have the majority and the huge activist base, but even then it cannot be seen as a foregone conclusion. Unfortunately, what the campaign in Streatham is bound to do at the next election is suck hundreds of activists in from elsewhere who want to see Chuka dumped out on his backside. Understandable, but those are bodies that might be better deployed in other London or south east seats. Like Bermondsey, for instance, where the idiocy of Neil Coyle could gift the seat back to the LibDems, or Lewisham. For the LibDems, ultimately Chuka is expendable as long as his fight to cling on drains resource from other targets.

And so, in fewer than four months he's gone from Labour to Change UK, from Change UK to "The Alternative", and seemingly from it to the LibDems. Centrist tourism, eh? And at the end of it all, despite his incompetence and failures, at last Chuka is looking like he might be of some use to someone.