"It's going to be a you-know-what-show"

As MPs return to Westminster, Matt Chorley assembles a crack team of former political spin doctors to diagnose the problems in their parties, and their long-term chances of survival.

Katie Perrior, who was Theresa May's No10 director of communications, insists the PM is dead set against a second Brexit referendum: "She thinks it's highly divisive, when you go back on democracy. But will she choose it over getting fired? I don't know, that's politics."

Paul Ovenden, who was a Labour press spokesman until after last year's snap election, voices his despair at the party's failure to get a grip on the antisemitism row. He explains: "The problem is it is not just any political issue for Jeremy Corbyn or the people around him. The foundation of their politics is the idea that the West is a force for bad, a force for disruption of the Middle East and Israel is a big part of that."

Vanessa Pine, a former special adviser to Sir Vince Cable in the coalition government, admits her party has not made the progress it should have done in the last year: "There have been self-inflicted wounds." 

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