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  1. Politics
22 January 2016

Labour can’t win with Jeremy Corbyn – but he’s not the one to blame

Labour's self-described mainstream has much to answer for, says Tim Bale.

By Tim Bale

I’m not so sure the commentariat as a whole got it wrong, but I do know that I did. I’m supposed to know something about the Labour party, but I didn’t see Jeremy Corbyn coming. In my book, Five Year Mission: the Labour Party under Ed Miliband, Corbyn is not only not suggested as a possible successor to Miliband but is not mentioned at all.

Indeed, it wasn’t until YouGov published its first poll of party members that I began to believe he might actually win. Even then, it took another poll to persuade me that, far from the love affair between Jezza and Labour’s grassroots being a holiday romance, it was going to last right up until September and beyond.

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