Hard Left ideas would lead to ruin

Jeremy Corbyn, who by some estimates has a serious chance of becoming Labour leader, yesterday produced a brief economic pamphlet that breezily suggested the Government should raise another £120 billion a year in tax, increasing the overall tax burden by almost a fifth. The document aroused no obvious controversy in Labour circles, and Mr Corbyn’s bandwagon rolled on. Such is the current state of the Labour Party.

Instead, it fell to Tony Blair to warn against a return to the Left-wing tax-and-spend agenda that made Labour an unelectable anathema to British business for a generation. Whatever his failings, he was right. The most striking thing about Mr Blair’s warning is that it falls to him to issue it. More than 10 years since he last contested an election, he remains the party’s most eloquent advocate of a more sensible approach to business and wealth. Labour’s Leftward drift began when he left office in 2007, and continues still.

Consider the conduct of the putative frontrunners in the leadership race, Andy Burnham and Yvette Cooper. Both owe their careers to Mr Blair’s election victories, and are surely astute enough to see the sense in his words. Yet neither acts on it, each preferring to limp along in Mr Corbyn’s wake in the hope of being the second choice of his supporters. This is unedifying, to say the least.

At the general election, this newspaper recommended a Conservative government, since that was, and is, in the national interest. But Britain also needs a grown-up opposition prepared to debate the issues of the day, not a populist rabble interested only in echoing the wealth-hating delusions of the disaffected Left. It is quite possible to wish for a better Labour Party without wishing that party to be in power.

Instead of pandering to Mr Corbyn and his misguided supporters, those who aspire to be serious leaders of the Labour Party should confront him, reject his half-baked ideas and explain to those supporters that his path would lead the party to ruin. If that means some candidates dropping out of the race to offer Labour a single Stop Corbyn candidate, so be it.

If Mr Burnham and Ms Cooper are not prepared to take on Mr Corbyn, they do not deserve to lead their party, let alone the country. And if Labour does not resist the temptation to indulge in Mr Corbyn’s fantasy politics, it will deservedly pay a heavy price. Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.