Polly Toynbee writes:

Given the worst choice in history, the public preferred [Boris Johnson] to his opponent. How bad did Labour have to be to let this sociopathic, narcissistic, glutton for power beat them? That’s the soul-searching question every Labour member, office-holder and MP has to ask.

Labour was disastrously, catastrophically bad, an agony to behold. A coterie of Corbynites cared more about gripping power within the party than saving the country by winning the election. The national executive committee, a slate of nodding Corbynite place-persons, disgraced the party with its sectarian decisions. Once it was plain in every poll and focus group that Corbynism was electoral arsenic, they should have propelled him out, but electoral victory was secondary.

Should we laugh or cry at Corbyn’s announcement that he wouldn’t stand for another election? He should have gone before dawn. Any possible or impossible successor will clear out that Len McCluskey clique – Karie Murphy, Seumas Milne, Andrew Murray and others who propped up the old fellow to secure their own power base – with results worse than Michael Foot. Watch them try to divert blame onto “Corbyn-disloyalists”, remainers and ”Blairites”. [Continue reading…]