Jon Ashworth speaks out on the leadership - the Tory leadership

592 - words from Jon Ashworth on Tory leadership crisis
0     - words from Jon Ashworth on Labour leadership crisishttps://t.co/U3MWR7qyfa

— Dan Martin (@Danjamesmartin) June 29, 2016

The other day I blogged about the mystery of the failure of Leicester South's Jon Ashworth to resign from the shadow cabinet.

Since then the mystery has only deepened. Jeremy Corbyn is down to 40 supporters in the parliamentary party, but Jon Ashworth has still not resigned. He sits their among the Cat Smiths and Richard Burgons.

Yet neither has he offered any public explanation of his decision.

It has been suggested to me locally that Ashworth has stayed put because he is on the hard left. But, as I said in my earlier post, he was an Ed Miliband loyalist. And people from that strand of Labour thinking have now resigned.

The other story I have been told makes more sense: he is under severe pressure from his constituency party. But then, as my source said, so are many Labour MPs and it didn't stop them resigning.

Still, Ashworth has spoken out. As Dan Martin, the Leicester Mercury's political correspondent tweeted earlier, he has written an article for Labour List on the Conservative leadership:

The Conservatives have revealed themselves as incapable of providing the answers we need and as ever, it is those most in need who will suffer the most at the hands of their failure. David Cameron might be losing his job, but he won’t be the hardest hit.