Yet another article about Jeremy Corbyn. Some observations on the current state of the Labour party.

The Tories have a 13 point lead in the polls, Theresa May has a 56 point lead in personal polling over Jeremy, only 6% of voters trust Labour on immigration, less then 30% on the economy and 64% of labours 232 seats voted to leave in the European Union referendum. The situation is dark, dire and frankly becoming a death spiral but, alas, no one in the leadership or Jeremies inner circle seem to care, or at least to be be capable of solving this slow motion catastrophe.

Labour has not made gains in a general election or in seats outside of its core English metropolitan centres in 9 years. 2007 was the last time Labour won a general election and held any meaningful seats in the South of England. Even if Labour was capable of making gains, the mountain is arguably so steep that even the best candidate may struggle; labour needs to win 100 seats, 90 are conservative and 2/3 have a majority of over 3000 and that is even before factoring in the boundary changes which will affect Labour harshly.

The truth is however that Labour has the furthest thing possible from the best candidate. Jeremy rarely makes media appearances and when he does is so testy and stand-offish that it gives an impression of either, at best, aloof smugness, or at worst, absolute contempt for those with whom he disagrees. Neither of which is a winning strategy to win over much needed Tory voters.

The mistakes he has made barely need going over, but for reference here are a few notables ones:

• Calling a reshuffle on the same day your activists are out campaigning against rail fare price rises and therefore wasting all of their hard work
• Hiring and firing an MP with cancer without even telling her
• Whether train gate was true or false the response was frankly embarrassing.
• Calling for article 50 to be pushed immediately
• Having your camp deliberately sabotage efforts by Alan Johnson, the head of labour remain
• Taking a short holiday in the EU referendum campaign close to the vote
• Recently hiring someone from Sinn Fein for your inner circle
• Triangulating and equivocating on condemning Russian atrocities in Syria
• The paltry “I condemn all abuse” response to the vile attacks on your own MPs and party members during the leadership campaign
• Suggesting after work drinking be banned because it is sexist, rather then say a better childcare policy or more equal distribution of household labour when it comes to children.
• Female only train carriages
• Giving a peerage to the “independent” convener of your antisemitism inquiry thereby compromising any perception that it had integrity
• Thinking reopening flooded coal mines is a viable economic strategy.
• Standing on a platform with SWP rape apologists.

The list frankly could go on. Most of this is at best terrible judgement or at worst tantamount to utter contempt for the very purpose to which the labour party was created; to be elected and to improve the lives of ordinary working people. This should not be happening in a party which seeks the support of the general public to form the next government, but instead is becoming more and more discredited. No one is going to entrust the country to a party that seems so chaotic or mismanaged, whatever we think of the terrible alternative in Theresa May.

I have some sympathy for notions that the media give him a hard time. This is indeed true, however it has been true of every labour leader there has ever been. Indeed arguably Ed Miliband and also Sadiq Khan experienced much worse. The answer is not to avoid the media, but to toughen up and think more strategically; most of labours problems have been own goals rather then being outmanoeuvred by the government and so it is wrong to blame all labours failings on the press.

Some on the left seem to be taking succour from the recent poll defying victories of the right in both the US and Brexit election, which on the face of it may make some sense. The problem with this analysis is that in every major election the polls supposedly got wrong it is the votes of the left which have been overestimated, not the right. It is the right which is best finding an appealing answer to the concerns of voters, not the aloof overly intellectual left.

I also do not accept that that there is no alternative to Jeremy in the party and that there is no difference between a moderate centre left platform and the Tories. The former is frankly beyond sanctimonious and the latter wilful blindness.

Firstly with regards to those who say there are no alternatives to Jeremy. Many have argued that he is the only labour politician with “principles” and that there is no convincing alternative. Frankly this couldn’t be further from the truth. This argument relies on the most ridiculous caricature of the parliamentary labour party. It makes them into a hypothetical bogey man and in the process ensures that however awful Jeremy is, his position is safe because of the silly straw man disingenuously presented as the alternative by his supporters.

It relies on utter ignorance of the work and sacrifices ordinary MPs make. MPs work ridiculously long hours, make endless personal sacrifices and largely miss out on the most important parts of their families lives. Most MPs work extremely hard in their own constituencies and actually know their constituents and constituencies much better then any of us could ever realise. My own personal preference would be for someone incredibly articulate but also plain speaking such as Caroline Flint or Lisa Nandy, but I doubt that this will ever happen.

On the issue of a more centre left platform being the same as Theresa May I could also not disagree more. A centre left government would not be pursuing Brexit at all costs, would not allow the NHS to descend into the dire state it is in currently, would not be closing sure start centres, would not be seeing cuts to spending per pupil in education, would not be reversing government pledges on childcare, would not have dropped plans for workers on boards, would not be pursuing grammar schools and would not be punitively cutting international student numbers. And so again, this is just another silly straw man used to justify and apologise for the worst failings of Jeremy Corbyn and the hard left.

I am not suggesting for one minute that any alternative leader would solve the problem. On the biggest issues facing the country Labour is split down the middle. On Brexit, metropolitan labour voters favour remain and 2/3 of labour voters overall voted for remain, however outside of these areas in northern or welsh strong holds the story is the reverse; of labours 232 parliamentary seats 64% voted to leave. On immigration only 25% of 2015 labour voters trust labour on immigration and increasingly evidence is gathering that party members hold wholly different views to those of labour voters, let alone the broader electorate, creating an ungovernable mass that arguably no one could solve.

As someone put it, labour has no safe seats any more, at least outside of metropolitan strongholds; in fact even safe seats like Alan Johnsons in Hull look vulnerable on current polling and the new boundaries. Clearly Jeremy leaving would not solve all of this, but it has to be the first step towards any ability to rebuild an organised and disciplined party with a convincing broad platform that could convince the winning coalition of voters required either to maintain our current position or to make gains.