Jeremy Corbyn and Tariq Ali. Flickr/The Weekly Bull. Some rights reserved.
The scenario is more a political patchwork, scrapbook of ironies, than one from which it is possible to draw many hard and fast judgements. From the Labour right we hear decried the inconsistency by which middle-class people explain to working-class non-voters why working-class people didn’t vote Labour. From the left; why the party machine and loud commentariat that just presided over a second consecutive election defeat, might want to pause a moment before hectoring anybody about what it takes to win an election.
The most prudent advice would be that Labour heed the words of Johns Prescott and McDonnell; there is no need for a crisis here, and cause still less to openly express so acrimoniously whatever divisions might lie within the party. To do Labour the favour of reframing their current scenario: they increased their 2010 result by half a million votes, George Osborne is implementing a large proportion of Ed Miliband’s economic policies, and the party is undertaking a historically open leadership election (credit again to Miliband) that has given airing to views on which Labour’s members and natural supporters have spent the last quarter-century feeling betrayed. At the same time – and though it is fleeting, flippant currency – Labour has once again attracted popular attention and energy as the party most concerned with the declining quality of life and real incomes the average Briton is suffering.
