Here is a letter from the Weekend FT that needs amplification.
“The Labour Party have got themselves into another nice mess, as Oliver Hardy used to say. There is, I suggest, an elegant way for Labour MPs to escape. Why, if they don’t like Jeremy Corbyn’s policies, and I don’t blame them, don’t they cross the floor and join the Lib Dems? They would out-number the old Lib Dems and could force a leadership election. They have plenty of time to set out their policies to the electorate. They could even change the name of their party and in 2020 appeal to a broad swath of the electorate that, perhaps, by then will have wearied of Tory government.”
The SDP (Social Democratic Party) started in 1981 was, after all, founded by four Labour members: Roy Jenkins, David Owen, Bill Rodgers (the one whose name I always forget) and Shirley Williams. They thought that Labour had become too left-wing. Their new party morphed into the Lib Dems. As the Lib Dems are on the verge of extinction I should think they would welcome an influx of new MPs to bolster their sorely depleted ranks; MPs who share the ideals of the original Gang of Four. So who will lead the way? Tristram Hunt, Jon Cruddas, Frank Field, Alan Johnson, Simon Danczuk………. come on in, the water’s lovely, a pale blue.
(PS, the FT letter is from me.)
Yes, this might be some of the solution to the crisis of the centre left. So, too, might be a move toward a centre left party by some kindly, modern, Tories. I have always thought that John Major and Tony Blair represented a potential coalition and that between them represented a response to Thatcherism which had legs.