Maybe Peter Hitchens was right about Labour not being able to win regardless of who is leader.
This whole thread has been intensely depressing. I am at a loss to see how the Labour Party can climb out of the hole it has dug for itself.
I remember when the New Labour project began. The democratic socialist wing of the party was by and large prepared to allow the project to go ahead, recognising that it had the best chance of forming a Labour government. Any Labour government was going to be better than the Tories, after all. And indeed the Blair years did a lot of really good things (alongside a few disastrous ones like the embracing of PFI and some military excursions...). Anyway, the point is that the left didn't really interfere with things, preferring to sit it out on the back benches.
When I voted for Mr Corbyn, I naively assumed that if the democratic socialists ever gained the upper hand, the right wing of the party would similarly get on with supporting the policies wherever they could. When they didn't, I naively assumed that the second leadership election would settle it. But no, it is evident that a fair chunk of the party would much prefer a Tory government than one with democratic socialist policies.
The party has degenerated into a squabbling rabble.
Contrast with the Tories. The chancellor breaks a manifesto pledge, many of the party go out to bat for him explaining how it was absolutely the fair thing to do. A few days later there's a U-turn and the same people go out to bat for him explaining how that U-turn was absolutely the right thing to do, showing strength and a willingness to listen.
Can anyone here seriously see anyone in the current Labour leadership team getting that level of support?
Anyway, I can't see a solution. The New Labour project is long dead but too many of the party won't dismount. Mr Corbyn has been painted as an extremist loony lefty by all parties including his own, his credibility seems fatally undermined but I can see no-one capable of carrying forward his centre-left policies that won't suffer the same fate.
Peter Hitchens was right.
I guess we just carry on arguing for what is right and hope something turns up.