A Labour defeat, yes, but this was not nearly as bad as 1983 | Andy Beckett

Last week’s result was not a simple rejection of the left: the party’s policies on the big issues of the day could sow the seeds for future success

For the Labour left’s many enemies, there are few events more useful than a leftwing defeat. Not just for its immediate consequences, which have been graphic over the past week as Jeremy Corbyn’s messy but transformative four-year leadership has been reduced by his critics to a single bad election campaign. But also for the longer term ways in which such a defeat can be deployed: to attack leftwing politicians in general, close off leftwing policy options, and ultimately deny the Labour left’s right to exist. The left rarely gets to run the party and so is all the more castigated when it fails to capitalise on the opportunity.

On election night, the former New Labour minister Alan Johnson began this familiar ritual – describing the pro-Corbyn group Momentum, which has 40,000 members, as “this little cult”. “I want them out of the party,” he said on ITV. “Go back to your student politics.”

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