As Labour’s house falls down, leader is still measuring up curtains

A journalist asked: ‘Have you at any point looked in the mirror and thought: Could the problem be me?’

On the BBC, John McDonnell offered a variety of reasons for Labour’s embarrassing defeat in the Copeland by-election. Tory “disinformation”. Divisions among Labour MPs. Tony Blair. Peter Mandelson.

One possibility, though, was absent from the shadow chancellor’s analysis.

Later, as it happened, Jeremy Corbyn was giving a speech in London about Labour’s plans for Brexit. Afterwards, a journalist put to him the argument Mr McDonnell had dismissed.

“Last night the Opposition lost a seat to a governing party for the first time since the Falklands war,” said ITV’s Chris Ship. “Have you at any point looked in the mirror and thought, ‘Could the problem be me?’ ”

The Labour leader didn’t hesitate for a moment. “No,” said Mr Corbyn. “Why not?” asked the journalist. “Thank you for your question,” said Mr Corbyn. Well, that clears that up. It was weird, watching him yesterday. The party he leads had just suffered humiliation in what had hitherto been a safe seat. Yet he pressed ahead with the text of a speech written days ago, on a completely different subject, inserting only a brief passage acknowledging the previous night’s calamity.

He didn’t look troubled. He didn’t look concerned. Though he said he was “very sad” about Copeland, he sounded almost eerily unruffled. While the plaster fell about his ears, the picture frames shattered on the floor and the wall emitted an ominous creak, he was still flicking blithely through the sample book, musing over a new pair of curtains.

Here was all he could muster about the by-elections. The result in Stokeon-Trent Central – where Labour hung on with a reduced majority – was a “decisive rejection” of Ukip. He did not, of course, characterise defeat in Copeland as a “decisive rejection” of Labour, or, God forbid, of his leadership. All that had happened in Copeland was that “our message was not enough to win through”.

At only two points did he display real, unmistakable passion. The first was when he attacked “the corporatecontrolled media”. The second was when he sniffed to a journalist that “many of your colleagues in the media were predicting we couldn’t hold Stoke. We did!” Rosie Winterton – the Labour MP who was hosting the speech – must somehow have sensed that her leader would prefer some questions from other quarters. “I’m now going to move on to people who aren’t the press,” she said.

“Thank God!” snorted a Corbyn supporter in the audience.

Unfortunately, even people outside the corporate-controlled media weren’t entirely sympathetic to Mr Corbyn’s plight. “I’m not going to ask you about the by-elections – but just one comment,” said a businessman. “It does remind one of the telegram between Austrian and German generals in the First World War. It said the situation was ‘catastrophic, but not serious’. ”

Mr Corbyn frowned. He looked bemused. Well, you can see why. Everyone knows the Germans would have won the First World War if it hadn’t been for Peter Mandelson.