Len McCluskey on the election: "The whingers and whiners say we didn't win. I say we

[Peter]

There's an eye for history as you put it, and then there's misty-eyed nostalgia for a period of utter political impotence and widespread failure as a political party. The fact that people like Mason can even express a sentiment like that surely tells you they're more interested in ideologically-pure opposition than in gaining power and doing things.

And that's the real problem with seeing 2017 as a victory, of course. It sets a limit on your ambitions and tells everyone you don't ever really expect to actually win.

Well, the real problem with seeing it as a victory is that they lost, but I take your point.

They will see the result as re-shaping the political debate and dismissing the notion that the electorate should never be presented with a left wing manifesto. They also see it as a huge victory within the party, which it is.

Going forward, it is dangerous. I would like another election sooner rather than later.