Yvette Cooper

Long ago and far away Corbyn gets arrested!
In May of this year Ed Miliband and the Labour Party lost the general election and Miliband resigned. It's not fair to pin all the blame on him but this has to be the starting point for looking at the win by Jeremy Corbyn of the Labour party leadership election. Miliband did however, and perhaps unintentionally, do both Corbyn and his party a favour by introducing the £3 membership idea.

Some estimates say membership is rising at a faster rate than at any time since the second world war when Clement Attlee came to power and now stands at 554,272 members and we know that 251,417 voted for Corbyn. Naturally the Corbynistas will say 'if only our man had been in charge in May'. But it's not that simple. Corbyn came in late to the contest with a bit of a fanfare from some in his party who wanted the election hustings to brighten up. They hoped he would swing the contest towards the other candidates but the opposite happened.

But the original idea at least showed a bit feeling for the public, if you look at the votes for the other three candidates they only total 171,247, without Corbyn the interest shown in the contest would have been reduced. Second placed Andy Burnham was simply revolting, being all that was wrong with not only Labour but also in UK politics generally.