Labour’s terminal decline began before Jeremy Corbyn

Labour’s dire performance in the Sleaford by-election is just the latest sign of a party in terminal decline. To cap it off, a YouGov poll out this week puts them 17 points behind the Tories – their worse showing since the gloomy days of Gordon Brown. Jeremy Corbyn is taking his share of the blame for the miserable state of the Labour party. But for me, the beginning of the end for Labour can be traced back to well before Corbyn. The third of March, 2011, to be precise.

It was on this day the Barnsley Central by-election brought rising Labour star Dan Jarvis into Parliament. As a rookie reporter for the Barnsley Chronicle, I had a front row seat for this political event which, on the face of it, might not have looked particularly unusual. Given this was Arthur Scargill’s home town and Barnsley had dutifully returned a Labour MP in every election since 1935, Jarvis’s win seemed predictable.