Labour’s pantomime is no laughing matter

IT’S all too tempting to view Labour’s increasingly self-destructive search for a new leader as just a hilarious piece of political pantomime.

And the idea that Jeremy Corbyn – the bearded old class-warrior and Morning Star columnist – is the man to lead the party out of the wilderness is perhaps the biggest joke of all.

Yet the polls have the unreconstructed North London socialist comfortably ahead of his three rivals, proving conclusively that Labour remains in denial about the reasons for its general election humiliation.

Ed Miliband, driven on by his union paymasters, stood on an aggressively anti-austerity Socialist ticket and was soundly thrashed. So the party’s answer is to lurch even further Left, suggesting the electorate simply got it wrong.

Some party grandees – including acting leader Harriet Harman – are warning that unless they wake up from their selfdeluded trance, Labour could be out of power for a generation. But the Left is in the ascendant and in no mood to listen.

Ironically, Tony Blair’s attack on Mr Corbyn yesterday is likely to make the Left-winger even more popular among the grass roots, who loathe their multimillionaire former leader with a passion. David Cameron and George Osborne are doubtless rubbing their hands at this slow motion car crash – but is it good for the country?

Labour continues to hold sway over many large councils and a violent swing to the Left could affect millions of lives. Remember the havoc caused by the militants in Liverpool and London in the 1980s? And much as the Mail applauds the Tories’ outstanding record on reviving and rebalancing the economy, all governments must be held to account.

That requires a strong opposition – not a fractious, irrelevant rabble.