Dave, I’m a voter who has supported various incarnations of the Labour Party (including Corbyn’s). I have little understanding of the mechanics by which the party organises itself or functions. But I’m aware that ‘something’ is broken in the party, and I am of the opinion that, until that something is fixed, Labour is, and will remain, unelectable.

If my car breaks down, I don’t have the knowledge or skill to fix it, but I sure as hell know it’s broken down. Likewise my central heating or my dish-washer. You don’t expect me to be able to tell the repair guy how to mend those things, so why do you expect me to be able to explain how to ‘mend’ a ‘broken’ political party? It’s not necessary to know how to mend it in order to realise it’s broken.

The membership are the ones who have to make an unelectable party electable, and kicking lumps off each other won’t help that process. And, after fifty years in higher management in industry, one thing I’m absolutely certain about is that intransigence is the enemy of good decision making, and that the best decisions are arrived at when everyone involved sets aside personal enmities, old feuds, and ‘un-breakable’ principles, and all agree to compromise, at least a little, in order to reach agreement.

The intransigence and belligerence of, for instance, Steve’s posts sadden me, because they strike me as typifying the bitterness in the party that is preventing it moving forward and making itself electable. Again, during my working life, I was made brutally aware time and time again that harking back to the past and trying to re-fight old battles is not just un-productive, it is destructive in the extreme.

Somewhere along the road, the fights have to stop, compromises have to be made, and the Labour Party has to unite against the Tories and Populism. Otherwise, it’s had its day, and the Tories will have theirs in the form of permanent government. Is that what you guys want?