Labour pains

“On Friday 9 June, Jeremy Corbyn may find himself heading to Buckingham Palace to ask the Queen’s permission to form a government,” said Asa Bennett in The Daily Telegraph. Labour could win the election outright, or as part of a “progressive alliance” with the Greens, the SNP and the Lib Dems. It could happen – but the unlikeliness of this scenario is becoming a real problem for the Tories. How can they motivate people to vote to stop Corbyn taking power, if so few expect it to happen? Labour’s start to the campaign hasn’t helped, said The Times. Thirteen of its MPS have said that they won’t stand. Corbyn’s close ally Len Mccluskey was this week re-elected as leader of Unite, in dubious circumstances (see right). On Brexit – admittedly a very difficult policy, in that it utterly divides Labour’s natural constituency – the leadership has failed “to articulate a coherent position”. Corbyn’s policy on Trident is ever harder to discern, said Matthew Norman in The Independent. He had previously said he would keep it, but would in no circumstances use it. Now he says he might scrap it after all. At least he was “absolutely plain about bank holidays”: he intends to boost them by four, with an extra one for each UK patron saint.

“Yes, Jeremy Corbyn is disappointing,” said George Monbiot in The Guardian. “Yes, his leadership has been marked by missed opportunities, weakness in opposition and… incoherence in proposition.” But people should try to look past the “ineptitudes” to the underlying policies. His pledge to raise the minimum wage to £10 per hour is supported by 71% of people, according to Comres; raising the top rate of tax is endorsed by 62%. It seems odd that so many supported New Labour, when it oversaw the creeping privatisation of the NHS, the collapse of social housing, detention without trial and an illegal war in Iraq – yet they baulk at backing Labour now, when it calls for secure employment rights, access to housing, and the peaceful resolution of conflict. Corbyn, I admit, is not exactly competent. But recent history suggests that “competence in politics is overrated”: look where Tony Blair’s powers of persuasion, and David Cameron’s “smooth assurance”, got us.

There are a few optimists in Team Corbyn, said Stephen Bush in the New Statesman. But not many. The latest polls from Wales suggest that Labour will lose there for the first time since the First World War. All the evidence suggests “the kind of election result seen across Europe in the past decade”, involving “the disintegration of the main party of the centre-left”. For those around Corbyn now, the priority is to ensure that he stays on as leader after defeat, or that he is replaced by another member of his faction, said John Rentoul in The Independent. The irony is that, the worse he fares, the stronger the Corbynites’ grip on the party will be – since far-left MPS tend to be in safe seats, and moderates in vulnerable marginals. As good a reason as any, perhaps, to get out and vote Labour.