His party is divided and traumatised by Brexit, his leadership has been written off by most of the press, his attempts to reshape the Labour Party have ended in failure and he faces a prime minister that he trails by 20 points when voters are asked to pick who they want to see in 10 Downing Street. Poor Jeremy Corbyn – spring 2017 was no time for him to fight a general election.
In parliament’s bars, Labour MPs compared majorities in the manner of Monty Python’s Yorkshiremen: “5,000? I’d love 5,000! I’ve got 3,000! I’m doomed!” The only Labour MPs with anything resembling optimism about the contest were those planning to run for the party leadership afterwards. The front-runner – at least as far as the Parliamentary Labour Party was concerned – was Yvette Cooper, and her main opposition was thought likely to come from Chuka Umunna. Both candidates had campaign teams and were canvassing the opinion of MPs they thought might survive Labour’s reckoning. Corbyn’s close allies, themselves fearing the worst, planned to support Emily Thornberry, the shadow foreign secretary, as they thought she was the most Corbyn-friendly candidate with a hope of securing enough support to stand.
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