Fair point.
I think there is another narrative here and it is about making yourself electable. I am old enough to remember how the Sun would phone up a labour council (Lambeth were always worth a punt) late on a Friday afternoon, and get through to someone holding the fort and ask 'Can you comment on your council's decision to ban Baa Baa Black Sheep?'. Poor sod on the other end of the phone, having heard nothing of this (because it was not true) would bluster 'I am sure that any policy decision would have been made with the full congnizance of the executive according to statues X and Y' etc. The next day the Sun headline would be 'Labour ban Baa Baa Black Sheep'.
Some in labour learned from this. Blair and Brown. Campbell. Mandleson. The lesson was run a tight ship, don't frighten the electorate, and move the country slowly and gently to the left without pissing everyone off. And manage the bloody PR. Poor old Brown forgot all about that when he eventually bullied his way into number ten.
Corbyn, regardless of his past actions, track record on this or that, is naive and completely hopeless as a politician. He became leader owing to crass stupidity by a section of patronizing labour MPs.
Expecting Corbyn to pull the iron out of the fire and lead labour to a general election victory, and the country to peace and prosperity, is a bit like expecting Trevor Francis to lead Leeds United (to name a former great organization, now in trouble) to promotion, the PL title and European domination over the next 5 years. It is simply not in eiter man's DNA to make that sort of success happen.
I am as guilty as many former labour supporters to bury his head in his hands at the state of Corbyn's labour. The first job in politics is to look like a winner. Then you win. Then you 'get stuff done' (to quote a current trope). You don't even start down that road when you don't have the brains or guts to throw to the wolves a naive colleague, like Williamson, who has bent over and painted 'kick me' on his own bare arse.
Corbyn forgets that success doesn't come just by surrounding yourself with great mates who shared your journey. This worked for Mickey Adams for a while, but we were in division 4 back then. Great mates can help when you are up against the political equivalents of Chester City. But the real world isn't even looking. They certainly start looking when you enter the national stage.
As Alexie Sayle hasn't said, anti racists being thought of as racist owing to fat-headed dithery mishandling of simple issues is their own silly fault.
