It’s the Labour moderates who need to get real

It has become commonplace to remark that there exists in Britain a mainstream political grouping that seems to be dwelling on another planet. Lost in fantasy, harking back to days long-gone, it lives on illusion. Time and the modern world have passed it by. Fleet Street and fashionable opinion rage against these mulish daydreamers for turning their backs on the voters and depriving Britain of an effective opposition.

And all this is true. In only one detail are Fleet Street and fashionable opinion mistaken. They’ve got the wrong grouping in their sights. It is not Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell and their crew who fit this picture: it is the Labour moderates.

Neo-Blairites and neo-Brownites are in cloud cuckoo land — and in control of the parliamentary Labour party. In vain do they beat their fists against the new ascendency in their party. In vain do they prove, by opinion poll after opinion poll, that old-fashioned socialism will never win the next general election.