An apology would have been nice Steve, or at least an acknowledgement that I didn’t say what you were implying. The fact that you don’t have the cojones to admit your fault speaks volumes. But it surprises me not one jot.

So to be absolutely crystal clear, when I say, “…Party members to stop fighting each other and to unite to fight the real enemy…” I’m talking about the entire membership, irrespective of individual political views. I don’t give a damn about individual political leanings - Individuals’ precious principles are worthless when, not only can the Party not get itself elected to government, but also its lack of seats in the HoC make it incapable of mounting an effective opposition.

It’s not for me, a non-member, to tell the Labour Party how to solve its huge problems, but Politics is, and always has been, a world of compromise. Somewhere along the line, compromises have to be made - by all sides - in order to make the Party acceptable to the majority of voters. Failure to do that, a refusal to do whatever is necessary to defeat the worst Tory government any of us here can remember, is a dereliction of the Party’s duty to the people it was created to represent, and the intransigent ‘My Way or the Highway’ types would do better to take the highway.

I repeat - what’s needed is a Labour Party that can get itself elected, and can begin to repair the damage that the Tories have wrought on the weakest, most vulnerable. What we don’t need is a bunch of dogmatists beating each other up over ideology in a toothless debating society.

And Steve, your rambling, preachy accounts of what you claim to have done fifty years ago carry absolutely no weight in the here and now. It’s just political onanism, and it doesn’t do a thing to help the people who need a Labour government the most. Lose the cassock, and get a grip.

IMHO, YMMV of course.