It's now a week since Jeremy Corbyn was suspended from the British Labour Party for telling the truth. Let's remember some of the episodes that didn't merit suspension from this august party:

1) Charging a dictator £5 million p/a to help spin away massacres of civilians

2) Lying to parliament about your knowledge of, and complicity in, CIA torture flights

3) Sounding the racist foghorn with talk of asylum seekers "swamping" British schools (even the Tory shadow home secretary, Oliver Letwin, said that David Blunkett's language was wrong)

4) 12 years later, sounding the foghorn again when a Tory politician uses the same language, backing Michael Fallon up with a column in the Daily Mail, no less, when David Cameron has already rebuked him for his comments

5) An exception to the rule: Phil Woolas actually *was* suspended from the Labour Party when the courts found him to be a racist liar and expelled him from parliament. Phew!

(He was allowed back in a few months later.)

6) However, no Labour MP was suspended—or reprimanded in any way—when they lined up, one after the other, to express their solidarity with Woolas in his moment of shame, branding Harriet Harman as a "disgrace" for her criticism of Woolas

7) Tom Watson told us he had "lost sleep thinking about poor old Phil Woolas", a "bright working-class lad done well" who had responded with "customary grace" when he was sanctioned for being a racist liar. Was Watson suspended? Have a wild guess.

8) Margaret Hodge was accused by her own party colleague Alan Johnson of "using the language of the BNP". The BNP themselves were delighted and praised Hodge to the hilt. Period of suspension: no weeks, no days, no hours, no minutes—nada.

9) And another one from TB (you could fill an album with these)—meeting Italy's far-right leader Salvini for a "friendly" meeting, in his capacity as travelling salesman for another Central Asian dictatorship. Blair is still a member of the Labour Party in good standing.

10) The list could be extended: suffice it to say, Corbyn's suspension brings to mind Groucho Marx's comment about clubs that would have him as a member. He was always too good for Labour (& for the fairweather pals who won't defend him unconditionally today). The rest is noise.