To the naughty step for anyone who thinks a left-winger could win

Ok- are you listening now? People in this country won’t vote left-wing. We know this. It’s a given fact. We’ve been told it for years and don’t listen to any of those Scottish people who said they voted SNP because they liked their anti-austerity programme. Why should what people SAY about their reasons for voting be in any way relevant? We know, and they don’t. Got it? Milliband was left-wing and nobody voted for him. So that proves it, end of discussion.

But wait! Didn’t thousands of people say they didn’t vote for Ed because they thought he was Tory-lite? Doesn’t that suggest they might have voted for a left-wing candidate, if they’d been offered one?

No!! Because people in the Labour Party knew he was left-wing, even if no-one else did, and he lost, so shut up and let us get on with deciding which Blairite we want to lead the party now.  No-one in the LP wants a leftist leader, so even if one did get in, the LP itself wouldn’t support it.

But, hang on! Didn’t a majority of local Labour party branches (or whatever they’re called) support Ed against his brother because they knew he was more left-wing? So they supported a left-winger. 

For god’s sake, don’t be so silly! Ed was left-wing, he lost the election, end of.

But WE didn’t know he was left-wing.

Shut up! No left-winger will ever win an election – geddit? What’s wrong with you, aren’t you listening?

Yes, but –

SHUT UP!  OK- where was I? O dear! We’ve just had tens of thousands of people joining the LP because some weird, loony left-winger put his hand up to be leader of the party.  Well – that just proves it! No real LP member or supporter would EVER, EVER support a left-winger.

But didn’t quite a lot of them vote to select Ed coz he was left wing?

I’m not going to tell you again, one more interruption and it’s the naughty step for you!  All those people who joined to vote for the loony left are BAD PEOPLE. They are what we call “entryists” – pay attention, there will be a spelling test at the end.  These people are entirely different to the people who joined to vote for that lovely Yvette or Andy or whatshername. Those people are not entryists, they are exciting new blood who share the concerns we have to do anything we can to get into power and end Tory rule.

Anything? Even running a left-wing candidate?

No! Obviously not that, stupid.

So, how do you know people won’t vote for that?   

Because they didn’t vote for Foot and Benn back in 1983, and then they did vote for Blair all those years.

So – people who weren’t even born then are going to remember that left-wing meant some upper-class academic and a guy in a donkey-jacket who looked like he should have been the archbishop of Canterbury, not Prime Minister?

Well- ok then. Young people might get all starry-eyed, but pensioners won’t vote for lefts. They’re worried about their pensions.

You mean they’ll vote for the lot that have already mucked about with their pensions?

Look! We have to reassure them a Labour government won’t do anything to their pensions.

But they already have done something to their pensions! How much worse can it get? Ok, don’t answer that one, I don’t want to know.  Hmmm, there’s only one lot of people who we really know how they’re going to vote, and that’s the lot who joined the LP to support the left-winger.

But they don’t count. They are BAD PEOPLE. Right, that’s it! Naughty step for you!  

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