Hilary Benn for PM

Amidst the factional infighting in the British Labour Party as to who will be next to lead the sinking ship, there is only one MP who has the prospect of at least minimising the scale of that inevitable electoral defeat. He misguidedly stood in 2007 for the deputy leadership of the Party, only to lose heavily to the day facto female quota, shoe-in candidate, Harriet Harman. Then of course, a decade later Hilary Benn notoriously cooked his goose by delivering a brilliant Foreign Secretary-style speech in the Commons with his party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, sat right next to him on the opposition front bench.

The speech in the style of a foreign secretary of the old school that was in diametric opposition to the official stance represented by the hapless Corbyn. That act of perceptible treachery, although to some in the party also a noble principled and powerful stance on the need to confront Islamic State, sealed for some the notion that the sins of the father had been visited upon the most impressive son. Tony Benn reserved his cynical manoeuvrings against his party leader until the devastating general election defeat of 1979. His son, Hillary, did it brazenly with the party leader right alongside him 

Despite all of this, if there is one person who could conceivably come from the centre of the party, and unify it on the basis of not being associated with any of the dirt of the current political scene, and of course having gravitas, intellect and rhetorical emotional heft in spades, then surely there is no one who can compare to Hillary. 

Of course, for his deep but principled pragmatism on Europe, economic management, and TransAtlantic relations to be properly utilised, Hilary Benn needs sufficient Parliamentary Labour Party nominations. I suspect that’s where the unimaginative average Labour backbencher, or indeed Cabinet member, will continue to fail to see the strength that’s bizarrely largely ignored by the media and the commentariat, hiding there in plain sight. Always out of camera shot, he’s the one sitting further along the front bench, the man with responsibility for the so-called nation of Northern Ireland.

I only pray that someone in the PLP will wake up and realise before it’s too late that Starmer’s lack of intellectual and intelligence curiosity, Ange’s Bet Lynch-routine, and the Pillsbury Dough Boy friend of Mandy, just can’t and won’t cut it. (Andy’s semi-permanently exiled to Manchester despite or because of his popular schtick). Pray too that Hilary will see the historic opportunity amidst the donkeys currently offering national leadership. If that isn’t enough of a hurdle, it would then of course  require sense to prevail amidst the anti-democratic, anti constitutional, power that the dwindling national party membership would wield in choosing the PM. I am probably wilfully deluded in thinking that a touch of the old school from a man of 70 plus would appeal to the great unwashed. Shame, because i have no doubt that, given the chance to serve his country in the ultimate way, that he would rise above the image of a now largely forgotten father, and convey both charisma and leadership. This is what the party, and more importantly, the country needs. Whether it wants it is another matter. Either way it would probably prove to be a relatively brief period of highly capable but inevitably doomed national leadership on a par with that of Gordon Brown’s premiership, and of course that of Hilary’s father’s post-election nemesis, Jim Callaghan.

Labour's meaningless election

As the only Labour leadership candidate with a spark of personality and emotional verve has pulled out, I’m inclined to switch off until another tiresome Labour leadership contest is over. Jess Phillips last week exited a race that ever since Blair was chosen as party leader in 1994 has been marketed by the Party as about putting power in the hands of the members. Yet Phillips departed not because she had failed to convince Labour Party members, or the wider public, but because she knew she couldn’t be confident of the support of enough Constituency Labour Parties (CLPs) (or the support of two big trade unions) to ensure that she’d get through to the next round. It is only when these hurdles are jumped by candidates that the much vaunted ‘one member, one vote’ process will actually kick in and the real leadership election will start as ordinary members get to decide for themselves who to vote for.

Well, them and registered party ‘supporters’, a cheapo membership scheme introduced, in his perverse wisdom, by Ed Miliband for those people who (understandably) can’t endure going to members’ meetings. And among these ‘Labour supporters’ who in April will be determining who the next Labour Prime Minister might be, will be those who bought themselves a vote by registering as supporters as recently as mid-January. All’s fair then.

The absurdities of Labour’s leadership electoral system are a reflection of its spatchcock compromise between Labour’s historical roots as a parliamentary-orientated party paid for by organised labour, and the bizarre contemporary influence of US primaries. This has produced a corrupt charade where all party members are potential voters but some voters aren’t party members (and some of these have simply paid £25 to vote). Success in the election depends on garnering the backing of enough MPs and then the approval of enough CLP meetings or, proving that in the Labour Party the past is always present, a couple of trade union barons.

The actual leadership election this April was always going to include the candidate who wrote Labour’s least successful manifesto since George Lansbury’s poor performance paved the way for the takeover of the party in 1935 by that masterfully bland public school boy, Mr Clement Attlee. Rebecca Long Bailey’s skilled authorship of Labour’s most recent ‘longest suicide note in its history’ was facilitated by the man who had already blessed her prospective leadership. In December Mr Corbyn’s reverse Midas touch meant that party volunteers like me had to knock on doors with an unsellable message from an unconscionable leader. Long Bailey is likely to be among the final two thanks to the imprimatur of the man who led Labour to a defeat markedly worse in seat terms than Michael Foot’s in 1983.

Like the other, current, front runner, Sir Keir Starmer, Rebecca has been in parliament for all of five years. If I am not mistaken, this is the same depth of parliamentary experience enjoyed by Lisa Nandy too. Emily Thornberry though has been traipsing round the Westminster corridors for an incredible decade. Gosh. Better perhaps than Corbyn who’s been there since 1983 but who not only lacks ministerial experience – like every single Labour leadership candidate this time round – but hasn’t even previously shadowed the government minister for office stationery.

Sir Keir Starmer was anointed at birth with the name of Labour’s second most popular leader, and is eager to emphasise that he too has a (relatively) proletarian background in order to offset the knighthood he secured for an indifferent performance as the head of Public Prosecutions.

Thornberry’s disadvantaged Oxford graduate and high-paid lawyer routine probably won’t impress. Lisa Nandy genuinely understands that Labour’s disconnect with its onetime (white) working-class base is almost terminal, but this message is too difficult for the party’s liberal middle class chauvinists to process. Therefore it’ll be down to either Starmer or Long Bailey to bore the electorate over the next five years.

Long Bailey’s seismically dull campaign launch - head down, droning on from a tiresome text - suggests that she will only inspire those for whom having a politically ‘correct’ (i.e. leftist) message is what matters. Not the fact that it’s delivered, like the current leadership incumbent, with all the charisma, style and authority of a deputy borough council leader. 

She told the Party that being a working-class woman means that she’s doubly-disadvantaged. This cynical little routine comes from yet another former lawyer, but one who thinks that the way to reach the working-class is affecting to sound like them. 

So we’ll presumably end up with Keir Starmer. A onetime student Trotskyist with little hope of reaching those parts of the country that began being lost by Labour more than 40 years ago and which now vote Johnson. Still, the brave knight will be good at the dispatch box cut and thrust. And that’s what will convince on the door step, isn't it? 

Labour will never get out of this mess until it restores the election of the leadership of the Parliamentary Labour Party solely to Labour politicians elected to Parliament. Historically this method didn't always produce the most plausible leaders to contest a national election. However it usually had the virtue of producing someone who not only understood what contesting a national election entailed, but who could authoritatively articulate an inclusive message to the whole of the nation.