The aim of the Labour Party should always be to the elect the person best placed to lead it into government. Anything else is a total betrayal of all those we represent and who need us in government, desperately.

As I've said many times before, MPs represent their constituents. https://twitter.com/DanielB26463646/status/1309602476639821824

Those constituents far outweigh Labour members in importance and especially, in numbers.

So when Labour members demand X, and it's completely opposed to what most of an MP's constituents want, the MP should choose the latter. Every time.

In Corbyn's always very unusual case: the PLP, frankly, was becoming steadily more unrepresentative of public opinion.

But the massively expanded membership was even MORE unrepresentative of public opinion. Hugely so, in fact.

While the PLP had moved to the right of where most Labour voters naturally were, the expanded membership was miles and miles to the left of where most people were, and are.

And that's what caused the fundamental problem.

The PLP weren't about to support someone who, on all available evidence stretching back to the 1970s, they were convinced would be crushed... and if he was crushed, how would that help anyone at all?

So they got angrier and angrier... and so did Corbyn's supporters in response.

All of which led to:

- Bad faith attacks from both sides

- Quite horrifically venal behaviour from right wing Labour MPs

- A totally inept failure to deal with this by the leader

- An obsession not with the country, but with each other. Talking to ourselves.

None of this could ever realistically have worked. The British public are nowhere near where the Labour membership was between 2015 and 2019.

And sure, we came close(ish) in 2017. After the worst Tory campaign in modern history, with BOTH leaders deeply unpopular.

And also in 2017, the Red Wall teetered on the edge. Huge numbers of northern MPs barely survived. One more push and over it went.

Many people - myself 100% included - misread the 2017 result and thought it meant we were really close. We weren't. We'd maxed out what this approach could achieve.

Since when, normal service has well and truly been resumed. By which I mean:

In Britain, under FPTP, ever since the mid-1970s, when a traditional right wing party takes on a traditional left wing party and the latter has not moderated its approach in any way, the traditional right wing party always wins.

I think that will finally change with demographics

But not for another decade. Starmer represents the transition between old-style, managerial politics and new-style grassroots up politics driven by today's young people. It's a horribly difficult balancing act - but he has to maintain it.