Big Gay Longcat reviews The Legend of Robin Hood: Part Five

The news from the crusade is that King Richard has been captured by Leopold of Austria, who is demanding 150,000 moneys as ransom. This sounds like quite a lot, if only there was a well-known idiom to describe it, mew.

The Merry Mannys find out that Prince John has been keeping the taxes for himself instead of sending them on to the Chancellor.

Prince John tells the Sheriff of Nottingham his latest scheme is to pay Leopold even more moneys to keep the king prisoner forever. The Sheriff says

"Such skill. Such a simple plan. And so watertight.

The future begins to look very bright."

He's a poet and he know it.

Sir Kenneth has finally realised what a baddy Sir Guy of Gisbourne is, and regrets getting Marion engaged to him. He summons Robin to meet him, and swears Robin to secrecy before bringing in Queen Mother Eleanor (last seen by us in part two). She asks Robin to help her raise the ransom moneys for Richard, and he tells her about the moneys that Prince John has been keeping. Eleanor makes Robin her deniable agent and gives him an mission to steal the money for her, if he chooses to accept it.

One of Sir Guy's spies tells him about Eleanor and Robin's meeting, and Sir Guy tells the Sheriff, who quickly deduces what the meeting was about, making Robin's mission even more impossible. When the Merry Mannys find out about the increased security that Sir Guy puts on the moneys, Friar Tuck deduces that they know that they know about it.

Little John knows about a secret passage into Nottingham Castle, so the Merry Mannys sneak in. Robin captures the Sheriff and Sir Guy, and the Sheriff makes an "oh noes!" face, lol.

The Merry Mannys escape with the moneys in sacks, and leave the Sheriff and Sir Guy tied up. As soon as they are gone, one of the henchmannys frees the Sheriff and he shouts

"Guards! Guards!"

The guards, guards chase the Merry Mannys and have a fight with them, but we don't see much of the fight because it is dark outside.

Most of the Merry Mannys escape, but Little John gets captured. The Sheriff tries to seduce Little John into betraying Robin and the others, and I use the word "seduce" advisedly...

"You're a big, strong, healthy fellow, well able to enjoy the pleaseures of life, I'll wager. They will be yours, in abundance, when you tell me what I want to know."

Purr. Well I'd be convinced, but somehow Little John resists the temptation.

Sir Guy has a different plan to find out where the Merry Mannys are headed with the moneys. He kidnaps Marion to try to force Sir Kenneth to tell him, but all this results in is Sir Kenneth having a swordfight with him. This ends with Sir Guy stabbing Sir Kenneth, who goes

The rescue attempt for Little John involves the Merry Mannys infiltrating the castle grounds in a variety of disguises, including a couple as women for some good old-fashioned komedy hijinks when one of the guards takes a fancy to them.

Before sending him to be hanged, the Sheriff asks Little John one last time if he will tell him where the rest of the Merry Mannys have gone, and it seems as though Little John has finally succumbed to the Sheriff's charms (well... he's only a cat manny) because he says he will tell him.

Sheriff: "Excellent! Where have they taken the money?"

Little John: "Next time you see a rainbow, run as fast as you can. They're going to bury the money at the end of it."

Lol, he totally pwned you there, Sheriff! This makes the Sheriff very angry, and so he demands that the hangmanny make Little John dance.

The hangmanny is revealed to be Robin in disguise, and he rescues John instead of making him dance (or hanging him, mew). When they get back to their base, they find out about what happened to Sir Kenneth and that Marion is still Sir Guy's prisoner.

This is a proper cliffhanger, what with it even ending on a sudden cut to Robin's mildly concerned-looking face.

This instalment feels like a proper Robin Hood story, and on top of that it has loads of good scenes for the Sheriff in it, so this is comfortably the best episode since part two.

Big Gay Longcat reviews Doctor Who: Terror of the Autons Episode Three

The Doctor karate chops (Venusian karate chops) the driver so that the car crashes and he and Jo run away. The Autons pewpewpew at them, but miss, and then give chase.

The Brigadier and Yates arrive in their car, having obviously stopped off somewhere* to pick up another UNIT manny with a big gun. Guess which one of them gets pewpewpewed by the Autons?

The Doctor says

"They're Autons, bullets can't stop them!"

so Yates gets back in the car and runs one of them over. The others then get in the car with him and escape.

Farrel tells the Master that the Autons have failed to kill the Doctor and Jo. The Master is not surprised, and says

"He's an interesting adversary. I admire him in many ways."
"But you still intend to destroy him?"
"Of course. And the more he struggles to postpone the moment, the greater the ultimate satisfaction."

The Master knows how to play the game of Cat and Mouse. Purr.

The Doctor tries to use the Master's dematerialisation circuit (which he "borrowed" last episode) in his own TARDIS, but it doesn't work because the Time Lords, like Apple Inc, don't believe in backwards compatibility.

"My TARDIS might not work, but neither will his now. Wherever he is, he's trapped on Earth."

The Master now has Autons wearing giant fake faces - presumably to make it harder for the Doctor to remove them - handing out plastic daffodils to unsuspecting mannys. When they have no more flowers left to distribute, they get back on their bus.

At the Doctor's lab the Brigadier comes in with Mr Brownrose "from the Ministry." 'Brownrose' sounds a bit like 'brownnose,' is this Robert Holmes perhaps being a bit satirical with his character names? If so, this one is a bit too on the, er... nose, lol.

The Doctor pretends to be a friend of the minister in order to troll Brownrose, but he has actually come with a vital clue - he has a list of mannys who have died, and two of them were McDermott and Mr Farrel, "Production Manager and retired owner of the same plastics factory."

This leads the Doctor and Jo to speak to Mrs Farrel, who tells them about "Colonel Masters." When she says the name the Master's theme music starts playing, and the Doctor says

"I knew it."

because he is clever enough to see through the Master's almost-impenetrably cunning alias, although I suspect he needed a final hint from the music to get him there.

Mrs Farrel gives them the troll and tells them

"I found it under the curtains. It was as if it was trying to get out."

At the lab, a new telephone is being installed. For the first time we see that the Master is a master (lol) of disguise when he takes off his mask, Mission: Impossible style, to reveal that it was really him who installed the telephone.

If the Master is now in league with The Worst Company in the World, the Doctor really does have the odds stacked against him. The Master on his own is bad enough, but there's no limit to their evil.

The Doctor leaves the troll in his lab while he goes off to investigate Farrel's factory with the Brigadier. Jo is left alone in the lab when the troll wakes up. She sees it and screams for help from Mike Yates, who bans it from Twitter shoots it to bits. So bullets can't stop Autons, but it turns out they're super effective against trolls.

In the plastics factory, the Doctor finds one of the daffodils. The Brigadier asks him

"What do you want it for? They give these things away with soap."
"It's plastic, Brigadier, and any plastic artifact, anything at all, can, in the Nestene sense of the word, be alive."

There is a giant safe in Farrel's office which the Doctor opens. It is big enough to have an Auton inside, which tries to pewpewpew them, narrowly missing the Brigadier before the Doctor defeats it by means of closing the door again.

They go back to the lab and see what is left of the troll. The Doctor wants to examine the daffodil, but before he can start he gets a telephone call from the Master.

"Hello, Doctor, is that you?"

This reminds us that even though we are almost three-quarters of the way through the story, the Doctor and the Master have not actually met each other yet.

"Who is this? What do you want?"

Given that the Doctor doesn't actually say 'yes' in response to the Master's question, it would have been embarrassing for him if he had called the wrong number.

"Simply to say goodbye."

The Master then makes a high-pitched sound effect that annoyed my puppy and his doggy friends, but which also causes the unnecessarily long telephone cable to attack the Doctor.

The Doctor makes a face, which means it's cliffhanger time!

* I expect they also rescued the lions and tigers off-screen at around this point in the story, seeing as the circus does not appear again.

Mission: Impossible - The Guardian

"Time for a new mission."

"Good morning Mr Klegg.
A small nation on an island off the coast of Western Europe has become dangerously divided between two extremist political factions. The governing party is friendly to us but is paralysed by weak leadership, with no individual in overall control. However a typical senior member of this party is this man...

Foreign Secretary C... er, Hunt, whose policies include privatising their National Health Service, flogging servants, shooting poor people, and the extension of slavery to anyone who hasn't got a knighthood.
The opposing party is presently dominated by this man...

Known only as "Jeremy," he rules it with an authoritarian, iron fist with the aid of a cadre of fanatically loyal supporters.
But it is not all good news for us: he is a socialist, with unacceptably fringe policies such as nationalising the railways and raising taxes on the wealthy.
He is also an anti-semite, as can clearly be seen from this out-of-context photograph:

Regardless of which of these two parties are in power, both are committed to their country leaving the European Union, which would weaken our Western Alliance against the Eastern Bloc.
Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to form a new political party that can occupy the centre ground of politics - an area that is currently completely unrepresented in that country..."

"Wait a minute..."

"This third party will need to be unambiguously in favour of remaining inside the European Union as its main policy, and use this to lure away the more moderate members of the other two parties, the majority of whom secretly hold such a view. This will be universally popular among the general populace, who are crying out for such a mainstream party to represent them.
Now I know what you're thinking..."

"...That such a party already exists?"

"...That such a party already exists, only we can't count the nationalist parties because they do not field candidates in every electoral constituency - something this brand new party must do if it is to challenge the two established parties.
You have carte blanche as to the name of the party, however it must encapsulate both a commitment to liberal values and support for the ideals of democracy."

"Are you taking the..?"

"As always, should you or any of your IM Force be caught or killed, the Editor will disavow any knowledge of your actions.
This party will self destruct in five seconds.
Good luck Nick."

The Shape Shifter

Previously on the Doctor Who Books Project...

Check out these pistols!

The first story in Voyager is The Shape Shifter, which is also the first story to appear in Collected Comics, a rather generic title for a 1986 Marvel special similar in appearance to the Marvel 1985 Summer Special Classic that featured The Iron Legion.

The only difference between the two versions of The Shape Shifter is that the one in Collected Comics has been coloured in, so I will review that one since I like colourful things more, perhaps because I am a colourful cat?!

The art here is by John Ridgway, and already we can see his trademark style of sometimes having part of the picture escaping from the confines of the rectangular panel system. He's a maverick!

This is the first appearance of the Doctor's new Companion Frobisher, and the story begins from his point of view. He is the "shape-shifter" of the title, an alien "Whifferdill" who works as a private investigator on some nameless space-noir planet.

After a couple of pages of seeing Frobisher getting into scrapes and demonstrating his shape-shifting power that gets him both in to and out of said scrapes, he returns to his office where he sees there is a reward being offered for the Doctor, either as Peter Davison or as Colin Baker. This story was first written in 1984 when Colin Baker was the brand new Doctor on TV, so it is clever of them to also give a reminder of the previous Doctor that readers would have been comfortable and familiar with.

He goes to look for the Doctor in nearby bars (space bars?) and, while the comic is not above the pun of Frobisher disguising himself as a "barfly", it does miss the trick of, when he eventually sees the Doctor, not including something along the lines of 'Of all the bars in all of time and space, he had to walk into mine.' Oh well. Mew.

The Doctor is already involved in a plot of his own, although precisely what it is we don't find out, and is looking for clues. When he gets attacked by two mannys outside the TARDIS (using the old cat logic of 'if they attack me it must be a clue'), Frobisher saves him before vanishing. The Doctor goes into the TARDIS and then

Frobisher hi-jacks the TARDIS. The Doctor makes a joke here that, with the benefit of hindsight regarding Colin Baker's ultimate fate, proves to either be foreshadowing or just bitterly ironic, not to mention exceptionally meta:

Frobisher gives the Doctor some examples of what he can do if the Doctor doesn't agree to fly the TARDIS to Cuba Venus:

The Doctor's likeness to Colin Baker is variable throughout this story, but this page is the nadir. The Doctor gives in and agrees to take Frobisher to Venus, but then Frobisher informs him he is going to hand him in for the reward.

The next page sees the TARDIS arrive on Venus with a "Vworp! Vworp!" It lands on the roof of Intra Venus Inc, the headquarters of Mr Dogbolter. It seems it was Dogbolter that offered the reward for the Doctor.

Dogbolter, who is not a dog but a cigar-smoking alien with a passing resemblance to Michael Grade's uncle Lew (could this be the real origin of Michael's vendetta against the programme?), is a recurring baddy in Marvel comic stories, although The Shape Shifter is the earliest story with him in that I have read.
In the way of Marvel comics, Death's Head #8 (published in 1989) is a crossover story with Doctor Who that seemingly brings the Doctor and Dogbolter's story arc, of which The Shape Shifter is a part, to an end.

The Doctor is handed over to two of Dogbolter's henchmannys in exchange for a suitcase full of moneys.

But then suddenly there are three henchmannys instead of two-and-the-Doctor. This is because it was not the Doctor who was handed over, but Frobisher shape-shifted to look like the Doctor. Frobisher stuns the two real henchmannys (at least I hope he only stuns them, he does say they're "out for the count") and then waits for the Doctor to rescue him.

The TARDIS materialises ("Vworp! Vworp!" again) and it turns out that between two pages the Doctor and Frobisher decided to team up and pull a heist on Dogbolter, like a two-alien IMF team. This makes for an effective plot twist in addition to further showing off Frobisher's shape-shifting skills. There is then another twist right at the end as Frobisher announces he has "decided to stick around" and become the new Companion... whether the Doctor likes it or not.

This is a decent enough story, with the fairly minimal plot being secondary to introducing the character and abilities of Frobisher - that is clearly its main purpose and one at which it succeeds.

What is therefore surprising is that Frobisher isn't named as such at any point during The Shape Shifter. He doesn't tell the Doctor his name, and is always referred to in the captions as "the Whifferdill." Curiously, his office door does have a name on it, but it says "Avan Tarklu Private Investigator"..?

Big Gay Longcat reviews Mission: Impossible - The Legend

Good afternoon Mr Cat. The television programme you're looking at is The Legend, a season one episode from 1967 starring Steven Hill as Dan Briggs, Barbara Bain as Cinnamon Carter, and Greg Morris as Barney Collier, with a special appearance by Martin Landau as Rollin Hand.
Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to review this story.

The episode begins, as usual, with Dan Briggs (since this is a season one story, and Jim Phelps didn't take over until season two) getting his mission from the manny on the tape.

"Good afternoon Mr Briggs. The man you're looking at is Dr Herbert Reiner, a dedicated official in Hitler's National Socialist party. For the last 20 years he has been in Spandau Prison outside of Berlin. On Tuesday next week Dr Reiner finishes his sentence, and with his daughter flies immediately to Puerto Bubera in South America, thanks to the generosity of an anonymous benefactor who has sent him a round trip ticket. Our informants tell us other of Hitler's top Nazis are also at this moment on their way to Puerto Bubera. Whoever is bringing them together seems to be well financed and determined to sow the seeds of Nazism across the world again.
Your mission, Dan, should you decide to accept it, is to put these Nazis out of business.
As always, should any of your IM Force be caught or killed, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions.
This tape will self-destruct in 10 seconds.
Good luck Dan."

Dan then picks his team, and sadly Willy is not one of them, but Rollin, Cinnamon and Barney are.

This is already an unusual premise for an Impossible Mission. There are only a few episodes where the badddys are Nazis, instead of the more common antagonists of foreign dictators, Communists, or the gangsters of the Syndicate.

During the mission briefing scene Dan explains that the baddys will be tough, as four other countries have previously sent "agents" to investigate the Nazis' mysterious benefactor, but none of them have managed to get into their secret base in Puerto Madeupa.

Dan is disguised as Dr Reiner and Cinnamon as Dr Reiner's daughter Ilsa. They go to the secret base while Rollin and Barney stay outside but nearby to help them. A doggy woofs at them as they go inside. But it is not all good - as well as the doggys, the base is full of Nazis!

They meet Friedrich Rutt, who seems to be in charge of the Nazis except that he claims not to be the mysterious benefactor but merely his "personal secretary." He takes them and some other old Nazis to a locked room where there is a manny in a bed.

Rutt says the manny in the bed is Martin Bormann, who Dan and the Nazis recognise as an important Nazi. Even though he is in bed, Bormann is not having sleeps. He talks to them saying he is injured from a crash and until he is well again he will leave Rutt in charge.

Rutt does a Nazi salute and everyone else has to do one too, even Dan and Cinnamon so that the real Nazis don't see through their disguise.

In the next scene, Cinnamon starts a fire in her bedroom. There is lots of smoke and while the Nazis are investigating it we can see it is a distraction for Dan to go to Bormann's room without being noticed by the Nazis. But things go wrong when Dan gets electriced by a trap, and then Rutt catches him and points a gun at Dan. This moment of peril is a cliffhanger moment and time for an advertisement break!

After the break (discernible on the DVD from the way the episode fades to black and then comes back in to the same scene) Dan talks his way out of trouble, saying he was worried about Bormann when he noticed the smoke, so Rutt is not suspicious. This does mean that their first plan has been foiled so Dan and Cinnamon have to contact Rollin and Barney for help with their next plan.

Rutt shows the Nazis films of Hitler making speeches in black and white, which is the kind of thing Nazis like watching. I expect they also like reading Hitler's speeches as well.

There are explosions outside the base. These are made by Barney - it is another distraction to cover Dan making a second attempt at getting to Bormann. Barney isn't in this episode very much, but he does have an important role to play during this bit. At least he was in it at all, unlike Willy who I miss because Willy is my favourite Mission: Impossible character.

Dan goes into Bormann's room with a gun in his hand, but it is not a manny in the bed, it is a dummy!

A Nazi dummy, if you'll pardon the tautology. This is the second ad break cliffhanger.

Seeing Dan with a gun already out, as though he is about to assassinate Bormann before discovering he is only a dummy, is very rare for Mission: Impossible. In fact this may be the only example from the entire series when a main character sets out to kill somebody directly, instead of the much more common scenario of setting a baddy up to be killed by other mannys on their own side.

I think it shows that Dan Briggs hates Nazis even more than Jake and Elwood do. Maybe it is because Dan is Jewish? Steven Hill, the actor who plays him, is Jewish, and so are the actors who play Rollin and Cinnamon, so while it is not made explicit if their characters are too, this would help to explain this unusual, unprecedented aspect of this mission.

Dan finds a tape player with Bormann's speeches recorded on tapes, including the one he heard Bormann say when he arrived earlier, so now he knows that Rutt has been faking up a Nazi.

Meanwhile Rutt and the Nazis go out of the base and find Barney's sound effects machine (a clever parallel - the IMF have been faking an attack on the Nazi base just as Rutt has been faking a Martin Bormann). Rutt blames Israeli agents and says they have "tried tricks like this before." They run back inside and go into Bormann's room while Dan is still there looking at the tapes, but he hides so he doesn't get caught.

Dan being in the room was more of a moment of peril than when he discovered the dummy, but the latter made for a far more effective cliffhanger - albeit one based on a moment of revelation rather than jeopardy.

Dan decides not to shoot the dummy even after all the effort it took to get to him, because he has a new and better plan. This time he needs Rollin's help.

Cinnamon starts to go outside the base to try get a message to Rollin, but she is caught by an old Nazi general. She gets away by pretending she was going to read Mein Kampf, which is another thing Nazis like. Once outside, Cinnamon gets caught again, only this time it is by Rollin pouncing on her for a fake jump scare moment.

With Rollin now in on the plan, they begin to put it into action. Cinnamon distracts Rutt by pretending to be very Nazi at him while Rollin stealths into the dummy Bormann's room, but he makes a noise so Rutt goes into the room to investigate. Rollin hides like Dan did earlier so Rutt again doesn't catch anyone.

With Rollin still hiding, Rutt puts the dummy in a wheelchair and takes him to the window where the Nazis are outside and they can see him (though not clearly enough to tell it is a dummy). He also plays them one of the tapes so they think Bormann is talking to them. Rollin can also see and hear them so now he knows what fake Bormann sounds like. When the tape is finished Rutt takes the dummy back inside.

Rutt gives the Nazis their orders for their secret Nazi missions, and he is about to send them away when Dan asks if they can see Bormann again before they go. Now we get the payoff moment of their plan, as Rollin enters the room disguised as Bormann!

Even if this is not a complete surprise to us viewers because it has been telegraphed in the preceding scenes, this is one of the best moments in Mission: Impossible because of Rutt's uncomprehending, astonished reaction.

The rest of the Nazis are all happy to see him. Rollin asks Rutt to help him sit down, calling him "Friedrich" and generally acting like he's in charge here. Rutt asks

"Who are you?"

and the Nazis give him puzzled looks. He orders them to arrest Rollin, but they don't obey him. Rollin has all the other Nazis completely believing he is Bormann, so they obey him and not Rutt, even when he sends Rutt to his room and asks him to hand over his keys, which Rutt does, symbolically surrendering his authority as he does so.

Rutt goes and sees the dummy is still in the bed where he left it, but he cannot expose Rollin that way because he was the only one that knew Bormann was a dummy really. Cinnamon comes in and Rutt tells her that Rollin is an impostor and he asks her to help him expose Rollin. In response she asks the perfectly reasonable question that, if Rollin is an impostor,

"Where is the real Martin Bormann?"

Rutt shows her the dummy in the bed and Cinnamon pretends to believe him. She gives him a gun and distracts the guard so that Rutt can knock him out and escape. Rutt goes into the room where the Nazis are but they still all side with Rollin.

Rollin is busy changing all of Rutt's plans and he throws papers in Rutt's face when Rutt refuses to obey him. Dan leads the other Nazis in applauding Rollin's actions, which makes Rutt even more angry and humiliated so that he shoots Rollin with the gun Cinnamon gave him. (Because we saw Cinnamon hand him the gun only a few moments earlier, this cleverly allows us to suspect it is a trick gun.)

The Nazi general disarms Rutt while Dan goes to help Rollin. He says

"Martin Bormann is dead."

The guards help Dan and Cinnamon take Rollin's body away, and Dan says to the other Nazis

"You must finish what must be done here."

The Nazis all know what is meant by this and, after Dan, Cinnamon and Rollin have left, Rutt confesses to them.

"I had to do it. Don't you understand? The truth is, right from the beginning it's been me. I wrote the manifesto. I was the voice you heard. I planned it all, every detail. All my life I've dreamed of this, and that was the reason why it needed him here. Nothing has to change, only from now on I give you the orders directly, and we can still achieve our goals. Give me a chance to prove it."

Every so often the camera cuts from Rutt's pathetic, ranting face to show the Nazis watching him, unimpressed.

"Let me be your fuhrer! Let me be your fuhrer! Let me be your fuhrer! Let me be your fuhrer!"

Over his last, desperately repeated begging words, the Nazis all advance on Rutt and then it cuts away to Dan, Cinnamon and Rollin (alive of course) in a car. We hear Rutt scream and the car drives away. The theme music starts playing signifying that it is the end of the episode.

Is this Nazi Donald Trump making one of his cameo appearances, like when he was in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York?

The scenes with Rollin as fake Martin Bormann lift this episode to another plane of quality, as watching him effortlessly take control of the Nazis, simultaneously usurping and subverting Rutt's own plan while at the same time Rutt is rendered impotent, unable to stop them even though he can see exactly what Rollin is doing... well, it is magnificent.

The fact that the baddys are Nazis just makes their comeuppance at the end all the more satisfying, and so this turns into one of the very best Impossible Missions there is.

Yes, even without Willy.

Mission: Impossible - The Brexit, part six

"Jim, there's trouble."

"What's wrong, Cinnamon?"

"The government have printed a propaganda booklet in favor of Remain and mailed it to every voter in the country."

"Surely you can't be serious? Simple reverse psychology tells us this would give a big boost to the Leave side, as voters feel they're being told what to do and vote the other way out of sheer stubbornness."

"I am serious, and don't call me Shirley. The problem is not with the ordinary voters, who are backing 'Vote Leave' in droves, it is with the politicians - they're believing their own propaganda, and so now every mainstream political Party is officially in favor of Remain. And because the referendum is..."

"...Because the referendum is only advisory, they could vote against it in their parliament. I see. That means we'll have to take steps to make sure there's a majority for Leave in the House of Commons. Fortunately for us, their First Past the Post system has given the Conservative Party an overall majority, so we only need to convince them."

"How can we do that Jim? We know that Prime Minister Cameron, Chancellor Osborne, and most of the other senior Conservatives all want 'Vote Remain' to win."

"That's true, Willy, but you're forgetting one thing - a vote in parliament would only take place after the referendum saw a majority vote for Leave. So we don't need to convince them now, we just need to ensure that whoever is leader of the Conservatives after the referendum is someone that will carry out the will of the people.
Willy, Cameron will have to go immediately - take care of him, er, it.
Cinnamon, I think ensuring the right person takes his place may be a job for 'Ms Leadsom' - just make sure you don't find yourself in the hot seat when the music stops."

"Yes Jim. But Jim, what about the Labour Party? As the official opposition, couldn't they rally support and block the vote in the Houses of Parliament?"

"I don't think we need to worry about the Labour Party somehow, Cinnamon..."


Meanwhile, at Labour Party Headquarters...

"Jeremy... I mean Comrade Corbyn... I have seen reports in the newspapers that you're not fully behind us in backing 'Vote Remain'. Tell me this isn't true, please."

"Do not believe the lies of the capitalist press, Comrade Burnham. I am fully in favor of our country remaining part of the European Union. Well, ninety percent in favor... seventy... call it fifty-five percent in favor, which is still more for than against it, no?
Besides which, haven't I been up and down the country making speeches in support of our comrades in the European Union? The press must have given them at least some coverage?"

"There's nothing about that here."

"Oh well, ask Comrade Eagle if you don't want to take my word for it."

"Trapped between betraying our socialist principles on the one hand... electoral oblivion on the other... I don't believe in the no-win scenario. There has to be... a third way. Exceptnotthatkindofthirdway. Perhaps... yes, perhaps I could become a mayor... a mayor like Sadiq

...but that's another story.