THE Labour right’s main pitch for activists’ and trade-union loyalty has always been that, unlike the left, it is electable.

For some commentators, being “electable” is a mysterious quality unrelated to the number of votes you attract. Anticipating Labour’s poor performance last week, Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee declared that “voters have no excuse” for what they were about to do — since “Keir Starmer and his front bench [are] thoroughly electable.”

Unfortunately the electorate disagrees. Polling for Channel 4 revealed that the top reason given in Hartlepool for not voting Labour was Starmer’s leadership. Of the candidates who stood to succeed Jeremy Corbyn last year, picking the London-based architect of Labour’s second-referendum policy was always a dubious strategy for rebuilding support in the lost Leave-voting “red wall.”