At the time of writing it looks as if Jeremy Corbyn has quite a decent chance of becoming Labour Party leader. The last time I voted Labour in a General Election was in 2005, so I don't on the face of it have much interest in the outcome of the party's leadership contest.
The tactical point made by Blairites and political journalists alike is that the electorate opted for the Tories when offered a choice last May between Centre Left and Centre Right. People are, the argument runs, unlikely to turn out in large numbers for a Labour Party further to the Left. Thus if Corbyn wins, Labour is bound to lose.
I actually think this is wrong.
The most obvious reason is the inherent uncertainty of politics. No one knows what's over the horizon. Harold Macmillan's "Events, dear boy, events", if you like. It's perfectly possible that a disaster so fundamental could overtake the Tories that Jeremy Corbyn would seem quite attractive by comparison.
But even in the absence of some Black Swan event, as Billy Bragg (one of Corbyn's celebrity endorsers) tweeted the other day, it's perfectly possible to calculate that if Labour shifts to the Left it will gain enough voters (particularly among the young) to win. It's a defensible tactic.
As it happens I think that Bragg has set his terms too narrowly. Yes, Labour will gain some otherwise apathetic first-timers. But, faced with the prospect of a Far Left government, some Labour voters will turn elsewhere (perhaps the Lib Dems or UKIP), lazy Tories will turn out who might not otherwise and some Lib Dems will vote tactically to keep Labour out.
Moving Left may be a gamble worth taking, but it's a bigger gamble than Billy Bragg realises.
If a Corbyn-led Labour Party isn't bound to lose, it nevertheless probably will, and to that extent as a former Labour voter I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
The overwhelming majority of Labour supporters, and a good many of its professional politicians, think that the financial crisis was all the fault of the City, that Labour did not overspend whilst in office, that Britain is suffering the yoke of Tory austerity, and that any alleged black hole in the public finances can be filled by taxing the rich a bit more. For them public spending should be limited by compassion, not affordability.
Then there is a group which understands that Gordon Brown's tinkering with the regulations gave the City more freedom to misbehave, that Labour ran substantial deficits during the 2000s which left the Treasury ill-prepared to deal with the downturn, and that if the bankers had behaved responsibly the lending spree which Labour rode with such ill-disguised glee ("No more Tory boom and bust") would have come to an end much sooner. They grasp that, despite alleged Tory austerity, public spending actually continues to rise and that the trouble with taxing the rich more is that there aren't very many of them, they don't on the whole get their money in an easily traceable PAYE cheque at the end of the month and they can afford accountants. These people also grasp that, ultimately, you can only have the public services you can afford.
The second group is a very small minority within Labour, and one largely grouped within the parliamentary party.
If you had to choose a demographic in Britain likely to contain the smallest number of people who took this second view, the Labour party membership would be a pretty good contender. Which is why polls show Liz Kendall lagging a distant fourth in the leadership race. That's the crushing irony. The people charged with deciding who is best placed to lead Labour back to power are those least likely to understand what's necessary to do so.
Labour can regard its election defeat in two ways. It can say that the electorate was wrong, and that all it needs to do is keep on persuading enough of us to change our minds.
Alternatively it could say that perhaps the electorate was in some respects right, and work out how it might change its pitch accordingly.
Unfortunately for Labour the first response requires nothing special. It merely requires its supporters to behave the way most people do faced with rejection. I was right! How dare they be so stupid! The second response on the other hand requires something exceptional - humility and openness. Since so many more of us are all too human it's not surprising that the first response has overwhelmed the second amongst the Labour faithful.
What makes it all the harder for them is that if the electorate were right, where does that leave Labour? If the days of the blank cheque are over, what is Labour for? The point of Social Democracy is that government taxes the surpluses capitalism produces, and uses the money to make a compendious safety net for the poor. But what if there isn't enough money to do that in the way Labour wants? How does it appeal to the electorate then? If it accepts Britain must live within its means, how does it differentiate itself from the Tories or Lib Dems?
This is the appeal of Corbynism. Rather than position itself as a Tory-lite party, the temptation is for Labour go the whole hog and stand proudly on the Bennite Left. The Blairite response to this proposition is, "But you will never win a general election". "Ah", say the Corbynites loftily, "but what is the point of winning when doing so would make us just as bad as our enemies?"
As I said, it's almost funny.
I can readily imagine circumstances in which I might vote Labour again. I think Liz Kendall is an incredibly impressive candidate. A good leader and some sensible policies might do it.
But Jeremy Corbyn? Come on.
In my lifetime Labour has gone on a journey which reflects both the vaulting ambition of its statism and the undermining of the industrial base which might once have been used to pay for it. It has gone from being the party of tax and spend (Wilson, Callaghan, Kinnock), to the party of tax, spend and borrow (Blair and Brown). Corbyn proposes a further transformation to the party of tax, spend, borrow and print money. Not on your Nelly.
