what's the future of the Labour left?

In an exchange about the Labour Party recently I bemoaned the fact the Labour left had no competence and the Labour right no ideas. So far Keir Starmer’s approach has not been about new ideas, but about absolutely hammering home the competence message. It makes a very refreshing change.

The Labour left, at least the very public part of it, has not responded well to its defeat. None of the key “outriders” — those media activists who fought for Corbyn — has the gift of genuine self-criticism, so you get weak beer such as “Jeremy isn’t anti-Semitic but…” which is the closest most of them will get to acknowledging anything went wrong at all.