The Collapse of the Labour Right

In calling out Jon Lansman and Momentum publicly for the temerity of, you know, organising, Tom Watson has made a fool of himself. Worse than that, in attacking a mooted alliance between Momentum and Unite he has gone so far as to suggest there is something improper about unions seeking to maximise their influence in the Labour Party. It's only a hop, skip and a jump away from questioning the legitimacy of trade unions acting politically at all, and that's a very dangerous game. Understandably, Len McCluskey has replied in his inimitable style and the war of words continue via social media, while spilling out continually into Unite's own bad-tempered general secretary election, and potentially damaging Labour's own council and mayoral campaigns.

Tom Watson is frequently attacked by Corbyn supporters as disingenuous and hypocritical because, let's make no bones about it, his criticisms of them often are. From the Brownist machinations against His Blairness, to the minor skirmishes with Progress during the Miliband years, and now in the era of Corbynism, Tom has acquired and assiduously cultivated a cloak-and-dagger reputation. He is the fixer to end all fixers, the puppet master that has the party bureaucracy dancing along with his manipulations. While he is responsible and accountable for his actions, Tom is a product and heir to a tradition that has long cast a shadow over the Labour Party, and one coming to its end. I am talking about the old Labour trade union right.

Packing meetings, nobbling selections, stitching up internal elections, blocking and suppressing opponents, elevating bad faith to the status of performance art - all lovingly narrated in Uncle John Golding's The Hammer of the Left - are, or were the old right's stock-in-trade. I say were because while the culture of shenanigans is very much part of the party's make up, it is increasingly getting more difficult to pull off. There are three reasons for this. First, there is much greater visibility than previously. Cases of egregious bad behaviour, especially in these factionally charged times, can get publicity. And lots of it. That damages the party politically, and this behaviour impinges on the second factor: the membership. Typically dismissed as keyboard warriors who've never seen doorsteps outside Google Images, in reality the massive 2015-16 intake are no more or less active than the majority of "old" party card holders. They turn up at meetings. They turn up and campaign. Abuses of democracy and process can serve to mobilise and strengthen their determination to stick with the leader and his programme (after all, that is the basis of Jeremy Corbyn's appeal). In effect, the membership, which remains majority Jez, make the discharge of bureaucratic chicanery more difficult and more expensive, politically, for those who indulge it.

And the last point is the virtual disappearance of the trade union right. The fixers of old had one foot in the PLP and the party machinery, and another in the trade unions. While workplace organisation was much stronger and consequently more militant than present before 1979, its concomitant was a quiescent bureaucracy uninterested in rocking the boat too much in the wider party. While nostalgics write of the transmission belt unions provided from the works' canteen to Westminster's terrace, worker MPs, with some exceptions, packed bureaucratic habits of thought alongside their underwear and Sunday best as they made their journey to Parliament. Likewise trade union officialdom reinforced exactly the same sensibility as they engaged in party structures. Keep things on an even keel, anything for a quiet life. The unions wouldn't intervene too overtly or too consistently in "high politics" provided Labour delivered the policies and in return they were expected to pacify and discipline their memberships at the party's behest. The relationship gave trade union leaders and senior officials direct access to ministers and Number 10, and an input into policy, but led to combustible politics as the 1975-79 Labour government shows. Upon Blair's election as Labour leader in 1994, the relationship became increasingly one-sided as the years wore on. The unions were still expected to rein in industrial action, and in return, well, the Tories will be kept out.

This was an unsustainable situation. Readers may recall from the period of the late 90s on how unions slowly but surely turned left. General secretaries preaching the virtues of "partnership" and cooperation were replaced one-by-one by a clutch of officials collectively dubbed the awkward squad. Politically speaking, they were all well within the envelope of big tent trade unionism but to greater and lesser degrees they took more uncompromising stances with regard to members' interests. This firmed up even further after Brown's defeat and the dawning of the Tory/LibDem coalition. First, most affiliated unions organised (haphazardly, it has to be said) for Ed Miliband and were for the most part later forced by active members into stumping for Jeremy Corbyn. Meanwhile, trade union officialdom has almost been entirely replaced by a layer or organisers who were lay members during the New Labour years and, in some cases, would have participated in disputes Blair and Brown oversaw. This is particularly the case with the Communication Workers' Union and the monomaniacal attempts by a Labour government to soften Royal Mail up for privatisation. The overall result is a shift in trade union bureaucracies and powerful lay committees to range from the soft left to Corbynism in political composition. Only USDAW and wee Community remain largely unaffected.

You can see where this leads. When it comes to affiliated trade union input into Labour, basically the material base for a union-backed Labour right has withered away. Because Blairism, as a variant of liberalism believed its own Third Way waffle and failed to understand the labour movement. It simultaneously set about undermining the electoral coalition it built in the country, while negligently and blindly destroying its own allies on the trade union right in the party. While unions are not monoliths, they are not disposed to be the guarantor of machine politics any longer, especially as it tries and stymies their influence. And so the material base for that has largely shrunk to party positions - lay and staff - elected office, and whatever can me mustered via Labour First, Progress, and the affiliated societies. In this context, more trade union participation represents a threat. Hence the overt hostility shown Len McCluskey, who has long promised more Unite input into the party, is far from an irrational dislike.

Once placed in this context, the anonymous briefings to the press, the moaning at PLP meetings, the compliance unit and its doings, the studied refusal to fight the leadership politically, the bizarre criticisms levelled at Momentum as a Corbyn proxy and Unite, and the utterly counter-productive behaviour makes sense. They are, effectively, the last gasps of a gravely weakened tradition lacking a discernible way of coming back. If they want to retake the Labour Party and become relevant again, a massive rethink is needed. But for as long as they're unwilling to even understand why there are where they are (apart from one brave and largely unacknowledged exception), they're stuck. If not doomed.

Dutch Lessons for the Centre Left

A much-hyped populist-right party with a "charismatic" figurehead and a sideline in racism, where have we heard that story before? Well, across nearly every Western liberal democracy it seems. But in the Netherlands today, the exit polls strongly suggest Geert Wilders' misnamed Freedom Party (PVV) has juddered to a deserved halt. The hype surrounding his person served to boost turn out of anti-Wilders sentiment. Their seat tally is up from 12 to 19, but hardly the lead they were hoping for. Likewise the liberal-leftish Democrats 66 (D66) and the Christian Democrats also move up to 19 while the governing People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) make for the biggest party with a likely haul of 31 seats. The Green Left also make an advance from minor party status to the big leagues with a possible 16 seats. The checking of Wilders and his rancid politics is welcome (remember, it happened here first), but the other big story is the complete collapse of the PvdA or, for you and me, the Dutch Labour Party.

Going into this election, the PvdA held the second largest number of seats in the Tweede Kamer, or House of Representatives. At 35, it was only outstripped by the VVD at 40, and so governed in a grand coalition of the centre left and centre right. As the junior partner, the PvdA's leader Lodewijk Asscher (pictured) served as Deputy Prime Minister to the VVD's Mark Rutte. And the coalition proved to be problematic for both parties. No sooner was the ink dry on their 2012 agreement, they shared a plunge in poll ratings. The VVD tumbled from around 40% and has mostly languished between 24 and 28 percentage points since. Not good. The PvdA's fall from approximately 38% was even more immediate and spectacular. By late 2013 it sunk to a low of 13%, and on the eve-of-poll were commanding, if that's the right word, under eleven per cent. That will give them nine seats. In short, a complete disaster and shambles.

I know people on the centre left don't want to hear it, but I'm going to spell it out again anyway. The malaise afflicting social democratic and labourist politics isn't a force of nature, it's not that electorates have become massive racists or impatient with the boring, plodding work of parliamentary government. The collapse of PASOK in Greece, the humiliation about to be visited on the Socialist Party in France, the failure of Renzi's referendum in Italy, the dismal performance of the Democrats and blue collar swing to Trump have a common theme. Indeed, the collapse of Scottish Labour and the 2015 evisceration of the Liberal Democrats share it too. All of them, every single one of them, did and were seen to be acting against the interests of their constituencies.

Blair-like Third Way politics might have fooled leaders of class and labour movement-based parties that class and labour movements don't matter any more, but political realities and interests do not respect wonkish delusions. Enacting policies that attack our people, defined broadly as the coalition of voters who are conscious that their interests are best served by returning the centre left, will only break them up. Pushing through cuts, attacking unions, undermining public provision, the promotion of market reforms, all of these policies hurt our people, alienate them, and fracture the bedrock of our support. Our alliance thrives on solidarity. It weakens and splinters under conditions of insecurity. It doesn't take genius to work it out.

Unfortunately for the PvdA, they now join that long list of miserable failures. The very act of going into government with its most bitter opponent was bad enough - imagine a Tory/Labour coalition - but to then sit with them as you deliver a programme of austerity that attacks your own base ... words do not exist to describe such stupidity and recklessness.

Labour and Insecurity

Two opposing stories have emerged about Labour's defeat in Copeland last night. The first is Jeremy Corbyn was a drag on the doors and cost us the seat. The second is Labour's vote saw long-term decline under Jamie Reed, because he was really a Tory. The former requires stuffing the latter down the memory hole. The latter demands ignoring the reception on the doors and the awful polling. For anyone trying to understand what's going on and to address the pickle our party is in, neither of these are particularly helpful.

Jolly old Lenin was fond of noting that one should try being as radical as reality itself, which means looking at things as they are. And, unfortunately, they do not present well. The Parliamentary Party had a good go at trashing Jeremy and making a train wreck out of Brexit, and we haven't recovered since. Pointing this out on social media, while true, isn't going to make it go away. The damage is done. There has been the populist turn in response, but there was little evidence of that on Copeland and Stoke by-election leaflets. In this relatively stable interregnum between the leadership contest and Brexit negotiations hitting the buffers, it's difficult to know what to do.

The key dynamic exploited by the Tories in Copeland was insecurity. Even now, after banging on about it for years, time and again we are ceding this ground to them and, unsurprisingly, we're losing. The three Albatross hanging around Jeremy's neck is his association - however unfair that might be - with terrorist groups, perceived weakness on national defence, and opposition to all things nuclear, which encompasses power stations. It's a truism of politics that people aren't going to follow a leader or a party that makes them feel unsafe. In Copeland, a constituency utterly dependent on Sellafield for its economic lifeblood, such a position was more toxic than spent uranium. Labour had big hopes that the NHS would pick up the slack, but it didn't and never could because, politically speaking, it is a weapon with limited range. Yes, everyone loves the NHS. Yes, people are worried about what's happening at the local hospital. And, yes, invariably thousands of voters in any given constituency will either have had recent dealings with hospital or know someone undergoing them. For most people at all other times, the NHS is a safety net. Few fret over A&E waiting times, lack of beds, and staff shortages until they have to use them themselves. It does not cut to the quick in the same way a potential threat to your livelihood will, and to be honest as the party of the labour movement it's a bad show that we're oblivious to this.

Ironically, pretty much the same reasons underpinning last night's defeat were behind the declining vote share under the dearly departed. Like most MPs, I'm sure Jamie Reed was fairly diligent when it came to representing constituents' interests and protecting local industry. Sellafield wouldn't have taken him on had this not been the case. But politically, throughout the Blair/Brown years, he was the local front man for a party that did little to stymie the complex of anxieties and insecurities their political economy gave succour to. People didn't stop voting Labour because it wasn't left enough. Like the centre left elsewhere more recently, they dropped off because the party didn't act in their interests and, in a number of cases, undermined them. As I'm fond of saying, the Tories don't ever make the mistake of attacking their base.

As leader, Jeremy ultimately has to take responsibility for the Copeland loss. But the underlying culprit is a congenital tin ear. Too many assume that a labourist party can get away with pushing policies inimical to the interests of the coalition of voters that back it up, and then, albeit from a different political standpoint, repeating the same feat and expecting a different result. Two cheeks of the same arse, one might say. Should Jeremy depart before the next general election, looking over the Chukas, the Jesses, the Dans, Yvettes, Lisas, and whoever else fancies a crack, there isn't a single one of them who recognises this is a problem, let alone have a solution. But there is someone who does talk quite a bit about it, despite their politics premised around perpetuating privilege and inequality. And she's riding miles high in the polls.

A Quick Word About Tony Blair

It's been a few months, so we were due another return of Tony Blair. And so we had today's intervention in the Brexit debate, fulfilling his earlier promise that he was going to get more active in British politics again. Naturally, and it couldn't have escaped His Blairness's notice even as he moves among the higher planes, is that there are a couple of by-elections on. In Copeland, the big issues are the local NHS and Sellafield. In Stoke-on-Trent, lying Paul Nuttall, aided and abetted by the Liberal Democrats, are trying to make it about Brexit.

Blair's speech wasn't helpful. Throughout the campaign, UKIP and their little helpers in the local and national press have tried to make a thing about Gareth Snell's Remain voting/campaigning record. He has said on more occasions than I care to remember that had he been a MP during last week's Article 50 vote, he would have obeyed the whip and followed the steer of Stoke Central's constituents and voted for it. He's even gone out of his way to criticise Paul Farrelly's stupid decision to defy the referendum result - Paul represents the tight marginal in neighbouring Newcastle-under-Lyme for Labour. The Tories have tried to make something out of it too. They put out a leaflet, signed by the Prime Minister no less, saying that Stoke's two other MPs - Ruth Smeeth and Rob Flello - voted against triggering Article 50 when, quite rightly, they supported it. Goes to show that Nuttall isn't the only liar in town. And so while Labour is working very hard to say that the Brexit result must be respected, along comes Blair to much fanfare to try and undo it all and muddy the position. At best, unhelpful. At worst, scabbing. I'll leave you to decide which.

That said, if the by-election goes down to a Labour loss, Blair will not be to blame. Like most places, he's not particularly well-liked in Stoke. Then again, not a great many people care about what he has to say either. The local paper have covered it, slots were duly put aside on the evening news, a talking point on local radio maybe, but it's not likely to have much of an affect on the by-election. Stokies aren't thick and know he's yesterday's man. If everything goes belly up, which is looking decreasingly likely, there will be other issues and legacies at play. His fool speech won't even register.

Goodbye to Tristram

It was nice for Stoke-on-Trent to make the news for something other than footy and the BNP. Less nice that it was my constituency party and my MP at the centre of it. Yes, as the world and its uncle now knows, Tristram Hunt is resigning the Stoke-on-Trent Central seat to take up the leadership of the Victoria & Albert in London. He can now spend more time with his young family, and it's a role he's temperamentally and culturally suited to. This then is going to be the first of three posts - the second will look at Stoke-on-Trent Central, the state of the local party, potential candidates and Labour's chances of holding on to the seat. This one is all about Tristram.

First things first, Tristram's announcement was greeted with the crows of his opponents, and the commiseration of his friends. For those identifying with the Corbynist left, this proves he was a careerist with no interest beyond self-advancement. For those arrayed against the leadership, Tristram's resignation is a loss of talent that reflects badly on Corbyn's prospects. There is no attempt to analyse or understand. Pigeonholing is the order of the day. The truth lies between these two poles, and I know. Because not only do I know him and have shared the local party with him for almost seven years. I used to work for him too. If you came here hoping for a denunciation, you will be disappointed.

Readers with long memories might recall the circumstances in which Tristram became the Labour MP for Stoke Central. The fag end of Gordon Brown's short tenure saw a scramble for seats as the 2010 general election loomed. Coincidentally, a long-running factional battle in this constituency centered around the local directly-elected mayor reached its climax. Early that year, the NEC intervened and put the CLP into special measures - in effect, the Labour Party's version of direct rule. Letters were issued to members ruling the upcoming AGM out of order and attendees were threatened with suspension and sanction. Said meeting went ahead and the whole constituency party was placed on the naughty step. The ruling on this came very quickly on the heels of the incumbent MP - Mark Fisher - unexpectedly announcing his retirement. Two months from the election and Labour was without a candidate.

Because of the special measures and because of the proximity to D-Day, longlisting and shortlisting was the province of a NEC panel. It was at this point that Tristram's name first surfaced, with the FT getting the scoop. Being foolish I didn't believe he stood much of a chance - little did I appreciate the dark arts of Peter Mandelson and how brazen the party can be when sorting sinecure for the favoured. I then thought selections were a meritorious affair. Pah. The longlist was a varied field of local folks and people from outside Stoke. And then came the shortlist: it was basically Tristram and two also-rans cynically tacked on so the local party had no choice but to rubber stamp the NEC's favoured choice. Seriously, I've interviewed dozens of candidates for the local government panel and I struggle to remember anyone worse than this pair. But as stitching goes, this isn't the most egregious. I digress. Tristram was duly selected and the Potteries moved into the light of a new dawn.

Locally, Tristram made a bit of a splash. The sort of plaudits getting heaped on him now echo those greeting his arrival in Stoke. Tristram had glamour, had connections, had ambition. He was going places and that made him a good catch for Stoke-on-Trent. He was lauded by local notables as a future Prime Minister, or at the very least someone who could open doors for the city in The City. As I was unemployed and despairing of ever finding work, Tristram was kind enough to offer me a job as a caseworker in the constituency office. Given the political distance between us it did give me pause, but in the end making a living came first. And I thoroughly enjoyed it. In addition to the casework, each of us in the office had a number of projects that aimed to define the shiny new MP in some way. For example, I was charged with putting together the 'Stoke Stories' conference in conjunction with the RSA to strengthen relationships between local third sector organisations, and lend any assistance and support the office could give them. Others over the last seven years included the backstamping campaign, the annual get together of local business leaders, the Maths Excellence Partnership, a campaign to save nursery provision, and securing an exemption for beleagured potteries from the renewables obligation. There were more! In addition to this, Tristram and his office got through a heavy caseload and secured some notable victories at the local council, with the DWP and sometimes (sometimes!) the government. Small shifts in policy or getting back monies owed isn't Bastille storming stuff, but it is important and makes a difference to those affected by them.

Meanwhile, Tristram was something of an object of fascination for the left. As one of the best known Blairites in the PLP, and being one of the few unafraid to (occasionally) avow himself a disciple, I always found it strange why he had a weird fan club. Was it the glamour? The proximity to Mandelson? His book on Engels? Far from getting a hostile reception, trade unionists in Stoke couldn't wait to meet him. I had self-identified Trots from elsewhere always asking after him. And even after that picket line crossing episode to deliver a lecture on Victorian civic culture and not, as per received myth, to speak on Marxism, he remained the left's favourite Blairite. Even if to hate and troll.

The mystery didn't end there. In person, Tristram is pleasant and funny, isn't overly posh and doesn't come across as a snob. But he remained an enigma both to his staff and the local party. Hand on my heart, despite working closely with him I cannot say why he decided to become a Member of Parliament. Nor, unlike Liz Kendall and her liberalism can I honestly say what his politics are. There would be many times he got up in front of the CLP to defend the Blairite commonsense about winning elections, of securing the southern marginals so we can help best Stoke-on-Trent, but there was never a sense of vision. For someone heralded as an ideas man, there were no ideas. For someone who was and remains passionate about education, I never understood where that sprang from. There was no patrician concern for the poor, which some might have expected. Nor a desire to get into power and reform our way to the New Jerusalem. Absent too was the obsession with power for its own sake - he never struck me as someone who had a personal hunger for government. On a number of occasions when asked about Tristram, I often likened him to the gentlemanly Victorian who was passing through Parliament on his way to other things.

The absence of politics was also the root of his mistakes as a politician. In the days following the 2015 defeat, he was shocked to find his opponents had laid the groundwork for their leadership challenges among PLP colleagues well before election day. As a result, the MPs not already signed up for others and happy to back him were quite modest. This absence of nous touched on other areas of work. As I wrote previously, one of the benefits of having Tristram as a boss was that he'd leave you to use your own initiative. He was not the kind of Member who took the correspondence home to check the spellings and tone. This also meant he didn't take as much of an interest in local politics as an MP should. Meetings with councillors were ad hoc and infrequent, local party strategy was something he fought shy of, and keeping the CLP happy wasn't a high priority. The latter undoubtedly helped contribute to it near-unanimously voting to endorse Jeremy Corbyn last summer. Unfortunately, like many Labour MPs, Tristram doesn't and didn't understand much the party or movement of which he is part, and didn't show interest in advice from staff and other local Labour people about how to navigate these choppy waters. He might have avoided the embarrassment of picket-linegate if he had, for instance.

Lastly, I was not surprised to learn of Tristram's departure this morning. Even before the election, local comrades knew my belief that if we didn't win in 2015, he wouldn't contest 2020. That became increasingly obvious after the Boundary Commission slated Stoke-on-Trent Central for deletion in the great Tory gerrymander. And there was the summer's grumblings that saw a local branch take a vote of no confidence against him. If Tristram wanted to hang on he would have had a torrid time, and not in a good way. The V&A position with its reported £300k salary has saved him from all that. Other Labour MPs in similar pickles are no doubt looking for gilded exits and hoping something like this will fall from the sky.

I don't bear Tristram any ill will. I shall always be grateful for the two-and-a-half years I carried bags. It was a fantastic job and, bleeding heart that I am, I helped a lot of people out in shit situations. We all did. But like him or not, the politics of his departure leaves the party in a weakened position and a by-election that is going to be difficult. Legacies should be celebrated. It just saddens me that Tristram's is something Stoke Labour is going to have to overcome.

The SNP's Blather About Blair

Tony Blair's politics are awful. But, after a 2.6 million word consideration of his conduct in the lead up to the Iraq War, I'm confident in the belief he's not a war criminal. However, some disagree and remain bent on bringing him to justice. The latest episode in this long-running drama was the motion put to the Commons earlier today by the SNP demanding yet another investigation. This was hung on the infamous note passed to George W Bush (relieved he won't now go down as the worst president in US history) saying "we will be with you, whatever". I can't see what purpose raking over all this for the fourth time would achieve, and think it's better left to the court of public opinion. And, as we know, their verdict is such that Blair remains a cult figure to fewer than 4.5% of the present Labour Party membership.

Well, actually, I can see a reason for some people wanting to go there yet again. As readers know, the motion was heavily defeated by Conservative and Labour votes. This came after a spat between the PLP majority and the leader's office over the appropriate response to the motion. The PLP wanted a three line whip to vote against, while Jeremy was equivocal and consented to a single line whip ... and making himself scarce in the process. However, contrary to what Stop the War think, this was no principled move by Alex Salmond and co. It was a political trap you could see from the Moon.

The PLP were right to oppose the motion, though for the wrong reasons. A defence of past votes cast in favour of the Iraq bloodbath, a residual loyalty to a fattening albatross around the old establishment's neck, some of the calculations undoubtedly were self-serving and arse-covering. Yet some might have spotted the wider politics too. In case anyone forgot Labour's summer of anything-but-love, the divisions haven't gone away. Instead, the emphatic backing of the party membership have imposed a truce on the PLP, though differences persist about what an accommodation with Corbynism involves. Yet that settlement, however imperfect it is, could fall apart if one of its fissures - in this case, differing attitudes to the Iraq War and His Blairness - is wrenched open further. Which is exactly what the SNP were trying to do. It's what any party opposed to Labour would try and do.

Herein lies the logic of Salmond's trap. The PLP would vote against the motion, confirming to former Scottish Labour voters that they remain the same old same old who made common cause with the Tories to keep the UK together and squash the progressive aspirations of the Scottish people. Had Corbyn been bounced into going along with it, that would have discomfited his leftist support base. And if he didn't and somehow avoided the vote, which he eventually did, he looks like a hostage to the PLP and boosts the demonstrably untrue ineffective opposition rubbish. In all, it suits the SNP for Labour to stay down and divided for as long as possible - they know their support in the medium and long-term might go back to Labour if it gets its act together and the SNP falls victim to a sudden shift in political fortune. If we draw one conclusion from 2016, it's that stranger things do happen.

A win-win for the SNP, then. Labour members are moaning about the PLP again, and Jezza made to look a bit rubbish. There was, however, an alternative. And that would have been for the leader to, um, have led. As a trap so obvious it made George Osborne's past stratagems look like Napoleonic masterstrokes, Jeremy should have attacked it as such, criticised the SNP for wasting Parliamentary time with petty point scoring, and voted down the motion on that basis. He should have trusted the good will the majority of party members have toward him as well as the utter non-issue it is among the wider electorate. This wouldn't have meant or been read by anyone that he'd gone soft on Blair and his legacy, but merely underlined the SNP's posturing. The lesson to take home is play the Parliamentary game, which is often irrelevant and mind numbing, or otherwise it will play you - and the consequences, unfortunately, are anything but trivial.

The Candidate by Alex Nunns

In the extraordinarily fluid period it is going through, the sudden rise of Jeremy Corbyn from the obscurity of the back benches to the front rank of British politics is perhaps the most shocking, and for some baffling, turn it has taken in decades. Within the space of a month, socialist ideas were catapulted back into the mainstream and by the end of last summer Labour was won by the left. As readers know, the so-called "deep process" underpinning Corbyn's rise is part of a pattern across the West activating different constituencies behind different political projects. In Labour's case, the new recruits won to the party were representative of the rising class of networked workers. To ensure the party remained a going concern and to avoid the black hole so-called "sensible" politics dragged Scottish Labour into, they had to be won over. But structural change doesn't just happen. Movements here work like a mole, but often requires something that can loosen the soil and allow it to break onto the surface.

In The Candidate by Red Pepper journalist Alex Nunns, we have the story of the summer of 2015, of how the contingent and half-farcical workings of a marginalised group of MPs and activists unleashed a force that revolutionised the Labour Party and has, I would argue, saved it from extinction. The narrative runs at a brisk pace, from the party under Ed Miliband's stewardship to the calamitous 2015 general election, and covering the arm-twisting that had to be done to get Corbyn's name on the leadership ballot through to the wave that deposited him at the top of the party. Everything is extensively referenced so if you weren't part of it you get a real sense of the political and media establishment's horror as it dawned on them Corbyn was going to do it. There are also plenty of interjections and reflections from comrades who were part of the team long before it became fashionable. In fact, it's the storytelling that is the great strength of the book, but it will make for uncomfortable reading for those who backed an Anyone But Corbyn ticket and then supported the botched coup. Nevertheless, if such folks don't wish to wallow in ignorance forever, Alex does a good job in setting out why Corbyn supporters are Corbyn supporters, and why the six-time winner of Parliament's beard of the year was able to win a poll that really mattered.

As you might expect, Alex addresses a number of key controversies that cropped up before and during the leadership campaign. The first is the perennial "elections are won from the centre ground" argument. This fallacy has been visited many times before here, and doesn't warrant repeating. Yet in the aftermath of the general election, this nonsense got an airing in the aspiration talk that quickly coloured explanations for the defeat. The view was that somehow the party wasn't speaking to people who want to do well and get on. This "getting on" was famously defined by former Scottish Labour leader Wendy Alexander in an utterly abysmal pamphlet as "second home ownership, two cars in the driveway, a nice garden, two foreign holidays a year, and leisure systems in the home such as sound, cinema, and gym equipment." This argument united the early leadership contenders, and was an unsubtle coded attack on the "leftist" election platform Labour put to the electorate.

We know memories are short in politics, and a lot of convenient forgetting happens. Still, it's worth remembering Ed Miliband's programme was so left wing that Theresa May stole it. And secondly, perhaps I need someone to explain to me in a patronising tone what socialism has to do with tightening immigration controls, the avoidance of nationalisation, and more plans to clamp down on social security. What the 2015 manifesto was was incoherent, and our campaign was plagued by mixed messaging while the Tories kept focused on the deficit, the economy, and how Labour was going to shack up with the SNP. Here, Alex suspends the narrative and takes out the scalpels. He, sensibly, questions how aspiration and Labour's lack of concern with it can be at fault when it wasn't on any campaign's radar? It wasn't something anyone reported back on from the doorsteps - and it was certainly not a sentiment I encountered while pounding the streets of (then) swing seat Stafford. He argues it was a baseless conclusion to draw, but was deployed to ensure that the party's politics swung back from Ed's partial break with the policy consensus to the Blairist comfort zone. And that's more or less what we got from the "mainstream" candidates who did battle it out with Jeremy, albeit with slightly different emphases.

Alex also takes on the argument that UKIP ate significantly into Labour's vote because it was too left. Drawing on work done for the British Election Survey, Jane Green and Chris Prosser found that people were actually more likely to vote Labour if it was perceived to be left wing. If it portrays itself as a centre party, it's less likely to attract voters. That appears to fly in the face of experience, particularly when we ponder Tony Blair and the triumph of 1997. But not if you consider what has happened to Scottish Labour, or the Socialists in France, or PASOK and now SYRIZA in Greece, and you might add Hillary Clinton and the Democrats. That is if centre or radical left parties are seen to be abandoning their core values and commitment to social justice and/or socialism and attacking the constituencies that support them, punishment can go beyond bad election results: it can destroy the party. Nevertheless, in the face of inconvenient evidence others went out and found some that supported their arguments. For example, Jon Cruddas popped up with some data claiming that austerity was popular with voters, which is why Labour lost. The basis for such a bold claim was 56% of respondents agreeing to "we must live within our means, so cutting the deficit is the top priority." Deploying leading questions is something social scientists learn to avoid from GCSE onwards as they have a tendency to produce distorted results. Simultaneously, Lord Ashcroft asked a 12,000-strong sample more plainly whether the government should continue with austerity. 54% said no.

What was also important about the would-be leadership contenders' stampede to the right was how far they had misjudged the party mood. The assumption appears to be that because David Miliband carried the party membership in 2010 that rinsing and repeating would have a similar effect. Disastrously so in the case of Liz Kendall. It was a collective failure of listening, of writing off the sceptical voices who always got up in their CLPs to criticise the neglect of the working class or pursuit of policies inimical to labour movement interests. Unfortunately for them, far from being isolated they were merely articulating what a large number of party members think and felt. Under Ed Miliband Alex makes the case that the party membership moved to the left, and was encouraged to stay there as the factions of the Parliamentary Labour Party jostled over the Falkirk affair and generally carried on as if the rest of the party were spectators. It meant that as far as Jeremy Corbyn's success was concerned, it was more or less a foregone conclusion as soon as he got on the ballot paper.

This claim is and will continue to be subject to much debate. I've argued before that Harriet Harman's tax credit debacle had an important role in catalysing support behind the Corbyn campaign, whereas Alex argues Jeremy was in the lead by that stage. The other candidates didn't help themselves. Liz Kendall was all for cutting them, Yvette Cooper more quietly in favour, and Andy Burnham adopted a position that satisfied nobody. Had they read the mood properly, or indeed had they been different candidates entirely then things may have turned out differently.

Continuing in the myth-busting theme, Alex takes on the argument that Corbynism represented a revolt of the middle class, as it it was a performative take over of the Labour Party by people uninterested in changing the world, but keen to shove their leftist identity politics down bamboozled party members' throats. It seemed to me then that this was more a case of Jeremy's opponents bumping into his more annoying supporters on social media and extrapolating from there. As it turned out, this as nothing of the sort. In polling done by YouGov, Alex notes how in the first week of August 2015, 36% of Jez backers were from the AB social grades. This compared to 40% for Andy, 48% for Yvette, and 65% for Liz(!). Across the party as a whole, Jez support comprised 51% of the ABC1s and 57% the C2DEs. If you buy the nonsense that the Labour Party is becoming more middle class, then Jeremy Corbyn's support base is disproportionately working class.

I've just picked out a few of the polemical targets Alex takes aim at. All throughout The Candidate, there are amusing asides and quips at the expense of the Labour right and equally as befuddled journos and commentators. As a history of Corbynism in its initial phase, it's difficult to see how it can ever be surpassed. Stephen Bush calls it a a court biography, but that does not detract from its quality at all. Alex has written a book that any honest treatment of Corbyn and Corbynism has to reckon with. I therefore hope he is thinking about a sequel that picks up from day one of Jeremy's leadership, but as it's still early we'll have to wait quite a while for that one to appear.

The Importance of Arguing Honestly

There's an interesting article in the latest edition of Progress Magazine. Crowded Ground by Robert Philpot takes a brief survey of the political scene before identifying emerging territory vacated, he claims, by ourselves and our Conservative opponents.

He makes some interesting points about May's flirtation with populism, another thing she borrowed from Ed Miliband. Yes, who knew? But it is an argument with some legs. As Ed was positioning Labour to mount his crusade against the predators of 21st century capitalism, it meant setting up a rhetorical structure in which the rip off merchants and spivs were opposed to the pure, unsullied, and virtuous electorate. May, during her Milibandist moment annexed those positions for electoral expediency. Lump them together with simplistic authoritarianism and clamping-down-on-immigration pitch, provided she carries through her promises May's in with a shout of patching up the post-1979 settlement and securing a lengthy period of government That is if Brexit and other unforeseen nasties don't spring any surprises.

The other thing in May's favour is personality, where conventional wisdom has it that she's a more serious and substantial figure than Jeremy Corbyn. Keep on saying it like Robert does and it must be true. Yet when you take the blinkers off and look at the evidence, we've seen nothing to suggest that so far. Her PMQ outings tend toward the blundersome and the wooden, suggesting the economic pitch isn't the only thing stolen from Labour's former leader. She's proven cackhanded in her Brexit appointments, has fallen out with big business (which, of course, doesn't mean they're about to beat a path to Labour's door), ducked a scrap over Heathrow, and doesn't appear any more competent in post than her predecessor. It's almost as if there is political value in Labour people talking her up. Yet when it comes to the role of personality in elections, despite the stress laid on the importance of having the right woman or man at the helm, actual evidence is much more equivocal. The classic study of the 1992 general election found perceptions of party leaders had a marginal effect. The influence it exerts is always heavily mediated by other issues. And so it also proved in 2015 - the drag of the blessed Ed was much weaker than is supposed. As ever, elections are defined and won on the basis of a small number of key issues, and even then it's a much more complex matter than owning the centre ground.

I digress. Robert's piece is interesting because he's among the first Blairite figures to catch the waft of coffee grains fanned by long-term demographic, occupational, and cultural shifts in all the advanced countries. Citing a policy paper that merely repeats stuff sociologists have been saying for years, he notes Britain is raising a generation "which is more socially liberal, internationalist and pro-immigration", but simultaneously aren't attached to the NHS in the same way preceding cohorts of voters were, and are more moderate on economic matters - whatever that means. It means long-term, May's project is in trouble - by implication, the hare-um scare-um of Tory campaigns will reach a use by date. But so is Jeremy Corbyn. It follows that as neither party are offering "a politics which is open, optimistic and future-focused" and are opting for "closed, pessimistic and backward-looking" positions, then we're screwed too.

Unless you believe Labour is offering something different, which it is. Yvette Cooper, for example, has been caught out on occasion (deliberately?) misunderstanding and passing off as fact the party's position on nationalisation. One would have thought that the nationalisation, democratisation, and cooperatisation of privatised utilities and rail is something that could catch the zeitgeist. Or the traction the basic income is getting among Labour's new leading layers, or the need for green industries, economic planning, life-long education (minus the tax on aspiration tuition fee debt represents), and the occasional use of QE for reasons other than bailing out banks and inflating property bubbles. Any casual observer without a dog in Labour's internal struggles would be hard pressed to agree with Robert that any of this is "pessimistic" and "backward-looking". In fact, its refreshing to see glaring social problems and future challenges spoken about plainly and addressed accordingly.

I get it. Robert isn't keen on the new leadership and thinks it's steering the party onto the rocks. Yet at his most polemical, he has to rely on insinuation, convoluted positioning, Delphic language and, I'm afraid to say, fibbing. It's as if a whole layer of Jeremy opponents are congenitally incapable of grasping his actual positions and offering honest, reasoned critique. And when they can't get to grips with their opponent properly, why should anyone else take their views on anything else seriously?

The Return of Tony Blair

You can't keep a good man down. Or, depending on preferences, a bad stench always lingers. Yes, Saint Tony has pre-announced a possible comeback. Caught between the rock of ruinous Toryism and the hardplace "ultra-leftism" of the Labour Party, His Blairness has identified a yawning gap where the centre ground should be.

We've been here many times before, including quite recently. The problem with any notion of the centre ground is it does not have a meaningful existence in the same way political values and the forces attached to them do. Blair had little time for such old hat, he took what we call in political science a spatial approach to politics. Find out where most people are on an issue, and try to be closer to that position than your opponents: that is the route to electoral success. The problem is the electorate tend to be all over the place. They might be left leaning on some things, such as the need for more housing, and are appalled at the tax dodging antics of the filthy wealthy. And right on others, like getting tough on crime and cutting immigration to nothing. The problem is one Theresa May has triangulated that territory quite successfully, if the latest abysmal poll is anything to go by.

The problem for Blair is that while he has an inkling the current political situation has something to do with the dull, authoritarian managerialism of his reign, he doesn't understand how or why. And neither do his disciples. Yes, Tone's time as PM saw a number of positives, but alongside the one huge, fat negative his approach didn't so much as challenge the neoliberal consensus as strengthen it. The subsequent erosion of the bedrock constituency Labour depends on is a direct consequence of his positioning, which means a 1997-style triangulation strategy is nigh on impossible for our party - even if it was led by a Blair-like figure. Jeremy Corbyn's Labour might be miles away from power, but it is doing the necessary spade work of sinking new foundations that will pay dividends in the long term.

The second problem with Blair is if he were to make a comeback, of leading politically he has no inkling. For all the trite talk of tough decisions, his pitch prior to '97 was "aren't the Tories useless and sleazy". Because they were and the public had had their gut full for 18 years, he didn't have to offer a political or philosophical critique. All the previous sins of Labour's approaches to power were compounded and reinforced. Facing a choice between adapting to or leading public opinion, always understood by Blair as right wing tabloid editorials, it was more prostration than meek acceptance. Tellingly the one time he did try and lead public opinion was on Iraq, and we know where that ended up. Therefore the current situation, whether Jeremy stays six months or leads the party into the 2020 general election demands something more than what Blair and his acolytes have to offer. It requires politics.

That said, while Blair has the habit of passing banalities off as profundities, he does make one useful point. His affection for "the centre" is a preference for elite politics, of those interludes where certainties are, well, certain, and not likely to be upset by realignments and the rude intrusion of masses of people. It assumed one form during the calm years of the post-war consensus, and another once the destruction wrought by Thatcherism settled down. Politics is in flux right now, and that isn't about to change. But in time, it will. The shape it's going to assume is up for grabs, but as things calm the strength of conservative forces in the party will gather and, if we're not careful, take us through the whole cycle again. Blair is the past, but he is also a warning of what could come.

Blair's Interventionism

Seven years in the making and the Chilcot Report confirms virtually everything said by the anti-war movement in the lead up to the invasion of Iraq. The conclusion was pre-determined, the intelligence was full of holes, the British military were ill-equipped for an adventure in the desert, it was known beforehand that chaos and terror would be the invasion's children, and last of all it was pointless and unnecessary.

As we know, our soon-to-be-ex-Prime Minister acquired a gambling habit that will cost us all dear. But in a way, Dave's deliberate positioning as the heir to Blair, perhaps unbeknownst to him, led him to ape "The Master" when it came to brinkmanship. Blair's desire to "sort out" Iraq came off a roll of foreign policy "triumphs". In 1997 part of Labour's success in weaning swing voters off the Tories was the party's business-as-usual pitch. There were to be no nationalisations, no splurging of the public finances. Just careful, competent management of the economy, a commitment to "what works" (i.e. privatisation and marketisation of services), and investment in crumbling infrastructure. Furthermore, as per the celebrated deal Blair had struck with Gordon Brown, the chancellor looked after domestic issues, particularly where matters economic were concerned, while Blair had a free hand elsewhere. One of these was the determination of New Labour's "ethical" foreign policy.

The West's view of the world in the late 1990s basked in the afterglow of the collapse of the USSR and its client regimes. Dictatorships in the East and Global South were giving way to nascent liberal democracies and a new world order of globalised capitalism. The West had won and now was the moment to impose a new settlement. Liberal internationalism, or "humanitarian" imperialism - depending on where you stand - was the foreign policy doctrine of choice in Washington and London, and was informed by two suppositions. The first was the "lesson" that military competition with the West destroyed the Soviet bloc and ushered in market and democracy-friendly governments in Eastern Europe - so standing up to tyranny pays. The second was the trauma of the Rwandan genocide. The so-called international community stood aside as about a million people were butchered in a state-sponsored blood rage. Victory in the Cold War showed what good interventionist policies can bring. What happened in Rwanda stood-in for the consequences of doing nothing. Therefore it had ready ideological cover to range where it pleased and was always already predisposed to meddling and intervention.

Blair was fully signed up to an interventionist foreign policy to try and solve the world's problems and make it safe for freedom and, whisper it, business. To his credit New Labour were committed to the peace process in Northern Ireland, which began under John Major, and Blair and his team deserve full credit for delivering the Good Friday Agreement. One intractable problem, solved. Contemporaneously, the conflict in the former Yugoslavia boiled over into the Kosovo crisis. Previous "humanitarian" intervention had seen the bombing of Bosnian Serbs - the "baddies" in media constructions of the conflict - and had the assisted ethnic cleansing of Serbian Krajina by Croatia in 1995. When the oppression of the Albanians of the Serb provoked resistance, a low-level conflict simmered up until the late 90s, when Milosevic set in what remained of the Yugoslav army to stamp out the Kosovan Liberation Army. Under the attempt by the Western powers to bomb Belgrade to the negotiating table, Serb forces managed to expel about a million Kosovars. Blair was an enthusiastic participant in the bombing campaign, and it appeared to work. The Serbs were no match for NATO air power, they withdrew, Kosovo became a Mafia-riddled UN protectorate, key figures - including the loathsome Milosevic - ended up in The Hague, and everyone could pretend it was a triumph for muscular liberalism.

Then came Afghanistan. After September 11th "something" had to be done about the Taliban. Cashing in the capital earned from the appalling attacks, the US pulled together a NATO coalition and started bombing Afghanistan barely a month after the fall of the towers. Providing air and special forces support for the Northern Alliance, the US and Britain helped drive the Taliban from Kabul in November. In early 2002 an interim government was formed out of exiles and anti-Taliban militias, backed up by American military power. A new liberal democratic constitution was ratified in 2004 and the first nationwide election since 1973 was held in 2005 on the basis of universal adult suffrage. Again, as a full participant in this war the ease with which the country appeared to be taken must have reinforced Blair's preference for interventionism. Remember, in the build up to Iraq the running sore of Afghanistan was not then apparent.

The lesser known 2002 British intervention in Sierra Leone makes a more convincing argument for liberal militarism than the Kosovan conflict. After 11 years of civil war, British forces were sent in to rescue foreign nationals as a hard won peace accord collapsed. But with scarcely any debate or media coverage, the British abandoned its mandate and defeated the rebel Revolutionary United Front, a peasant-based nationalist outfit noted for its thuggish cruelty and penchant for amputating limbs. It ended the civil war, restored peace and started rebuilding the country's shattered infrastructure. Blair was then, and is still regarded fondly by large numbers of Sierra Leoneans for the "services" rendered, and helps explain why Britain did much of the leg work during the Ebola crisis.

And one shouldn't forget the first Gulf War between the West and Iraq, which set the tone for the hegemonic foreign policy to come. The invasion of Kuwait by the million-strong Iraqi army, then considered the fourth largest in the world, and the subsequent coalition building and assault under US leadership had absolutely nothing to do with humanitarian concerns, but was dressed up and sold that way. Saddam Hussein wasn't removed from power, but it was a victory for democracy as the ruling Al-Sabah family scuttled back to Kuwait under Western protection. It was also in the name of humanitarian intervention that sanctions were applied and destroyed Iraq's economy, plunged its people into misery, and were occasionally bombarded under some pretext or another. This, obviously, was not Blair's doing but he inherited a set of foreign policy priorities that list Iraq and its grotesque regime the number one bogey. His toadying to Bush was as much continuity John Major as the Good Friday Agreement.

Of the four, Northern Ireland and Sierra Leone have been the most enduring of Blair's accomplishments. Kosovo is still an impoverished proto-state going nowhere fast, but at least the spectre of ethnic cleansing - of Kosovan Albanians at least - has gone. And Afghanistan? Well. But for someone at the time sold on liberal interventionism, each in their way could have been read as mission accomplished. If you wanted to believe and were prepared to suspend your critical faculties, there was ample grounds for those beliefs.

I don't think Blair should go to The Hague. I've never been convinced about the legalistic and procedural arguments around the invasion of Iraq, especially when the grounds for opposing it were ample. But what Blair is guilty of is criminal negligence and recklessness, and there is a 2.6 million word judgement to back that up.

Dear Tony

Tony, Tony, Tony, Tony. When I was a Trot I had it drilled into me that you don't necessarily speak for yourself. You always have to think about how your conduct and the positions you're arguing might reflect on your comrades. This sense of political self-responsibility, I think, is something of a virtue and my many, many blogs (I hope) abide by this rule. When finger tips touch the keyboard, there is a sense of trying to say something that others might find helpful. Political argument, after all, is about arguing with purpose. With that in mind, what were you trying to achieve with your recent comments?

As you were once so fond of saying, I get it. Jeremy Corbyn isn't the man for you. You believe his route isn't the path to power, and that a government with the kinds of policies he favours would be a "dangerous experiment". There are two points worth making here. First, a bit of humility would be in order. Your tenure saw you undertake a reckless experiment with the Middle East. Despite repeated warnings at the time, you ploughed ahead with your friend George W Bush - who at least has the good grace to keep his mouth shut - and helped set in train a series of events that led to the formation of Islamic State. Even without that unhappy consequence, an Iraq riven with sectarian tensions and regular suicide bombings is your legacy, and you deserve to be dogged by it until the end of your days. Whatever may happen should Jeremy Corbyn make it to Number 10, he is most unlikely to leave it with the deaths of at least 250,000 people searing his conscience.

The second point is a matter of the burden of proof. How would a Jez-led Labour government be "dangerous"? It's not enough to boldly advance a position, you need to back it with solid argument. Where is the danger when all wings of the party are pretty united on matters of economic policy. The leadership believe the state should take an activist role vis a vis the economy, a position shared by even Peter Mandelson. On public services and social security, the leadership is committed to no more cuts - a policy that has (in words at least) been adopted by the Tories. It wants to see more houses built, a life-long education service introduced, the removal of the market from the NHS and its integration with adult social care, a devolution of powers to local authorities, an increased minimum wage. I've looked among these pretty mainstream Labourist aspirations, and can't see where danger threatens. Are we instead talking about foreign policy and military spending? On the European Union Jeremy has swallowed his well-known scepticism and has made a strong case for staying in. Is that going to change in a government led by him? Absolutely not. How about withdrawing from NATO? Again, most unlikely. And Trident? As a member of NATO Britain would remain under the US nuclear umbrella, a point Nicola Sturgeon hammered home for Scotland time and again whenever it raised its head in the independence referendum. And is scrapping Trident necessarily that insane considering the military brass themselves are divided on the merits of its renewal?

Come on Tony, you might as well say it. By setting your face against this policy agenda, you're setting your face against a mild social democratic programme. That doesn't affect you, of course. There's nothing you can say and do to win those over appalled at your behaviour during the Iraq crisis, and your downright disgusting activities spinning for Nursultan Nazarbayev, the dictator of Kazakhstan, since leaving office. Yet you are oblivious to the whirlwind your remaining friends in the party reap every time you open your trap. Your chums in Progress are too polite (and star struck) to tell you to can it, but every time you say something you make their project that little bit more difficult.

Perhaps your arguments would be better received if they articulated something, but they do not. For instance, you say that the centre ground needs to get its mojo back. What does this vapid nonsense even mean? The "centre ground" isn't some independent political force. You always previously understood it as a zone where the policy and value preferences of the majority of nice middle Englanders in nice middle class swing seats were located, and your strength lay in your appeal to those yearnings and prejudices. Secondly, the centre ground just doesn't exist. Even if we define it in terms of where the majority of views are clustered on a given set of issues, what is left is an almighty mess. For instance, according to Jon Cruddas's latest iteration of his working class conservatism hobby horse, most people believe the economy is skewed towards the interests of a powerful elite. Yet the same research (which isn't without its problems) also says austerity was "popular" and the reason we didn't win the election. Where's the centre ground here? The blessed Ed tried, oh he tried. On every issue, our policies had a go occupying the centre ground by pitching in terrain equidistant from an old school Labour position and that of the Tories. This was a recipe for incoherence when clarity was needed. And for following your playbook, you weirdly castigated Labour for being "too left-wing". There is also the small matter of politics shifting and new realities coming into play. When the situation is one where the main parties of the centre left and centre right are eroding as their natural constituencies are dispersing, the view that the beloved triangulation of old, which depended on taking core votes for granted is a go-er is a recipe, frankly, of accelerating that process.

It's no secret that I've never rated you as a strategic thinker, a figure of substance, or even a politician who can do the professional politician things. Winning three elections against hapless opponents isn't genius; it's good fortune. You had an opportunity after the premature passing of John Smith, and you took it. Yet you remain a creature of that moment. Now, politics is a lot less certain than it was when you ruled the roost, every time you pronounce on this or criticise that you show yourself up as a man out of your time. I know you can't help yourself, but those old times are never coming back. Even if the Labour centre or the Labour right win back the leadership, the times they have a-changed and it's up to the party to deal with things as they are now, not how you perceived them to be 19 years ago.

Tony Blair and Pragmatism

There isn't much point taking a swipe at Tony Blair these days, but that's not going to stop me from having another go. And so our Tone caused a brief ripple yesterday as his interview in The Graun confessed to being mystified by the appeal of Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders. He's not the only one. As either "can't win" and nothing is possible without holding office, why would anyone back them?

Far be it for me to contest the wisdom of the winner of three general elections (and one world cup), but his observation is a touch out. As we've seen, not least on this blog, there remains a big question mark over whether a Jez-led Labour Party could do the business. The prospects for Bernie Sanders, however, are a touch different. In January, Sanders was doing a better job than Hillary in outpolling Republican rivals. According to USA Today, he trails Trump less. Where's the pragmatism, Tony?

Nevertheless, we have seen some important advances in Tony Blair Thought. He notes "Part of it is the flatlining of lower and middle income people, the flatlining in living standards for those people, which is very frustrating. It’s partly an anger for sure at the elites, a desire to choose people who are going to rattle the cage." He's getting there. Social media also plays a role, too - though something tells me the down-at-heel turning to Trump in significant numbers have little to do with Twitter of Facebook updates. He also says the centre left have got some serious thinking to do to get back its "radical cutting edge."

Being conditions consciousness, so I can understand where Tony's coming from. Superficially, his personage was once an asset for the Labour Party. He was young and fresh, untainted by Tory sleaze and the naffness surrounding the party under Kinnock's tenure. Under his leadership, Labour was able to affect a certain dynamism because he was the change candidate. He might like to think his programme was radical, but it wasn't. Better, certainly, but market fundamentalism was not only taken for granted but expanded. Important rights at work around equality legislation and parental leave were important, but benefited workers as individuals when, in order to renew itself, Labour needed to extend collective rights. Yet, written out of his theology is the likelihood that John Smith, had he not died prematurely, would also have carried the party to victory in 1997 - and one that would have seen Labour return as the Tories collapsed into disarray.

What His Blairness has done is not approach elections pragmatically, but turned the experiences of the 1997 victory into a model valid for all time. It's commonsense that you must have a policy diet and a leader palatable to a plurality of an electorate, but Blair's "pragmatism" is ideological flimflam that ignores the political context of his victory and alibis his own safe, distinctly non-radical politics.

... And Neither is Progress "Hard Right"

This time, it was John McDonnell turning up the rhetoric while drowning out the sense. On Channel 4 News last night, he said "there’s a group within the Labour Party who have a right wing conservative agenda. Within Progress itself, there are some who are quite hard right, and I think they’ve never accepted Jeremy’s leadership." I don't think this is particularly helpful, and it might be an idea if someone passed around the chill pills. Progress, of which - surprise, surprise - I'm not a supporter of, does receive generous funds from Lord Sainsbury, but I think people are mistaken for viewing the organisation as a right-wing iteration of Militant.

Progress is a pressure group that publishes a magazine, has its own events and, in some locations, meets at a local level. It has internal elections for its strategy board, sets campaigning priorities, and provides training for members and supporters. Unlike Militant, there is no internal discipline. The views of Richard Angell, Progress's national director, aren't taken as holy writ and no one is expected to parrot a line. Of course, there is some ideological coherence but it's not like Progress possesses a political theology members organise around - it magazine regularly carries debate, which is something you tend not to find in the periodicals of the far left. And because Progress isn't a Blairite monolith, there are members in it reconciled to Jeremy's leadership, but want to steer it into political waters with which they're familiar, and members who moan, whinge, and are disruptive. In other words, just as you'll find on all wings of the party. Lastly, Progress pursues a "best builders" strategy for gaining influence - it has an excellent record of consistently turning activists out for elections at all levels.

Of course, Progress does have disproportional influence in the PLP and therefore, until recently, on the policies of the party, but I don't think there's anything particularly sinister or "hard right" about this. That was a political reality and one, as we know, that is now shifting. Progress nevertheless has the right to organise around their views, as do any members in the party and that remains the case. The party isn't becoming a "Trot cult", to use the words of some more excitable members.

Look, we know what's going on here. Both sides are trying to delegitimise the other. As Progress are seen as a key organisational prop of the Labour right, it's long been the butt of left-wing critiques that portray its politics as non/anti-Labour. Not that the centre and the right are blameless angels, eh Jess Phillips?

The issue is whether the members and the electorate have much of an appetite for endless ding-dongs of this nature, and I don't think they have. There are huge differences over policy direction, and it's fanciful to imagine anyone's going to shut up about them, but when they do come up the party benefits from honest argument and evidence-based discussion. In this regard, I'm in complete agreement with Paul. Only anti-politics and cynicism wins from playground jibes and name calling, so how about it?

Farewell to Dan Hodges

You know Twitter has reached peak absurdity when someone like Dan Hodges - really only known by super hardcore political people - has become a trending topic. The occasion of Dan's elevation to internet celebrity is yet another piece of finely crafted miserablism for the Telegraph. His double whammy of likening Jeremy to hard right Tory patrician Enoch Powell and announcing his resignation from the party, again, is what sent Dan flying up the Twitter charts as sundry Corbyn supporters luxuriated in a bath of his bitter tears. I'm sure the Telegraph aren't minding the extra traffic either.

I can understand Dan's frustration. He is of the view that the Labour Party had 18 years of pain before cottoning on to what needed doing to win power. It meant adopting policies closer to where the majority of voters sit on the political spectrum, it meant appearing strong on the core issues pertaining to voters' senses of self-security (i.e. the economy and defence), and it meant having a leader that could inspire confidence in those parts of the electorate most likely to cast their ballots. He was of the view that Ed Miliband wasn't up to it, and so it proved - though I doubt very much his preference would have turned out any better. And now with Jeremy at the helm, he believes the party as a whole have unlearned the lessons of the 80s and 90s. The reality is rather more complex than that, but our Dan has always had a penchant for black-and-white thinking smeared with a dollop of cynical empiricism.

Let's take his two big points in turn. Likening Jeremy to Enoch Powell was obviously intended to inflame. How dare a lifelong champion of anti-racism be likened to the poster boy for racists. The comparison, however, doesn't work that well. Whereas Powell was a "principled" and unapologetic champion of patrician Toryism which, nevertheless, was already moving towards the fringes of the party when he made his celebrated anti-immigration missive, you can see that Dan is desperately trying to map Jeremy onto him as someone equally as rigid and out-of-step with modern life. The key difference is that while Powell did and Jeremy does represent a real movement, Powell was ultimately an individualist who turned his back on the Tory Party over Europe and later returning as an Ulster Unionist MP. Jeremy, whatever one thinks of him, is a proper labour movement person who believes in the power of the collective. Corbyn fans threatening to leave if Jeremy goes, take note - the party is always bigger than the individual. So no, Dan's comparison doesn't really work - but then any old rope will do.

As it happens, this individualist feature is something Dan shares with the Corbyn supporters he despises: a preoccupation with purity. His whole piece drips with sanctimony, as if the leader, the MPs, the supporters are all morally responsible for the baby killing outrages IS are reportedly committing. Never mind that British jets haven't flown sorties against IS targets for several days, or that the whole campaign is a joke taking place solely for appearance's sake. Just like Jeremy's legion of keyboard warriors, Dan's participation in politics is almost entirely virtual. He, like they, sit on Twitter permanently aghast. He soaks up the media coverage and cannot understand why other members and, occasionally, the public are indifferent to the appalling coverage the leader attracts. Difference being he gets paid to write up his sense impressions of this rarefied world. That and occasionally worried Labour MPs and complementary Tories phone him for a gossip. Having imbibed and contributed extensively to the media characterisation of the party, he believes his own propaganda and holds the party to be unclean and repugnant. His stated intention to "stay and fight", which is why he rejoined in June, was somewhat undermined by his complete lack of party activity or attendance at meetings - you know, where the real action and debate in the Labour Party takes place.

Dan is a columnist who makes his living by writing comment. Nothing wrong with that. What Dan is not is, like celebrity members such as Robert Webb and Matt Forde who've made similar huffy exits, an activist, someone who voluntarily gives their time to fight for the politics they believe in vis a vis the public and/or fellow party members. Ultimately Dan's repeat resignation is symptomatic of centrist narcissism that says less about the Labour Party and more about him, his political immaturity, and his total lack of fortitude.