Terror takes hold over Labour’s ‘liability’ at polls

DAYS before Jeremy Corbyn’s initial election as Labour leader I texted back “excited and terrified” after one of his closest aides asked how I felt.

Exciting, because I liked his politics and how he’d electrified so many young people; terrifying, due to fears he’d struggle.

The excitement’s gone and the terror’s intensifying when the two words which best describe why devastated Labour humiliatingly lost a Northern stronghold are “Jeremy” and “Corbyn”.

His name cropped up again and again on doorsteps in now blue, not red, Copeland, the Labour leader a major vote loser for his party in Cumbria.

Even disciples of the battered leader, a decent man with honest politics, were shaken to discover the depth of hostility.

Holding Stoke Central is a relief for Labour and illustrated UKIP is in decline, and the result is a hammer blow for Porkie Pie Paul Nuttall’s anti-migrant extremists.

It is the Tories, not UKIP, who Labour should fear and there’s only horror for the first opposition to lose a seat to the governing party in a by-election since 1982.

So no gloss can be sprayed on a crushing defeat, a reverse which underlined the limitations of focusing on the NHS. Health is important, a major issue, but it isn’t enough.

Nuclear power was a radioactive local issue and Corbyn’s low-watt backing, illuminated by past calls to pull the plug, didn’t help the party.

Corbyn’s an electoral liability, deeply unpopular with many voters who consider him neither competent nor credible. A party with a leader who doesn’t look or sound a potential PM isn’t sniffing power. The choices are to unite behind Corbyn, find a new leader or carry on destroying itself.

Labour losing one of its own constituencies isn’t hitting rock bottom.

It’s still digging.