Like an old car reaching the end of its useful life, you can tell a political party’s in trouble by the noises it makes. Personal insults being lobbed about, obviously; bricks through windows; and, no less telling, a constant whining about a review of parliamentary boundaries. And yes, the Labour Party is being especially noisy, as we all can hear.

Only this morning I experienced a constant whingeing noise coming out of my car radio as Labour’s Jon Ashworth, shadow minister without portfolio, went on and on about how unfair the review was. He had some fair points, such as the timing when the electorates were ‟set”, and he avoided accusing hard-working impartial civil servants of gerrymandering, but the note of panic was unmistakeable. As well it might be. Jeremy Corbyn, by the way, made an unconvincing case for preservation of his Islington seat by virtue of the “multiple needs” of his comparatively small number of constituents. Another bum note from the Labour leader, who would no doubt find little problem finding somewhere else to park. Like Pontypridd maybe.

Think back. When Tony Blair won his twin landslides in 1997 and 2001, did anyone give much consideration to what advantages the boundary review gave to the various parties? Did they avail John Major going down to the worst defeat since 1832? When Margaret Thatcher crushed Labour in the 1983 watershed, the electoral system actually helped Labour hang on to more than 200 seats and see off the SDP-Liberal alliance. She would have won anyway, though. That’s because parties win general elections because of the state of the economy, the charismatic qualities of the leadership, their policies, marketing, the sense of “time for a change”, maybe some sleaze and corruption in their opponents, underlying changes in social attitudes, and the interplay between those sorts of factors. Not boundaries. A confident united party with sound policies and a competent leader will transcend any necessary movement in constituency distributions.

What’s more, Labour will probably still possess some electoral “advantage” even after this review, which will only somewhat rebalance things. It has enjoyed this bonus ever since the 1960s, when the phenomenon of small depopulating inner city seats emerged, and zealously protected it. It has a long inglorious record in doing so. Way back in 1968, the Labour home secretary simply refused to introduce a bill to bring into law a normal redistribution that would have hurt Labour. It was blocked, defiantly, and Labour still went on to lose in 1970.

Jeremy Corbyn: One year as Labour leader

When the Liberal Democrats vetoed the 2011 review, they did so for more ostensibly respectable reasons: the Tories reneging on reform of the House of Lords. But they also knew the review would boost their Conservative coalition partners, and, with the failure of the AV electoral reform referendum, they could also see looming failure at the polls. Just as well they did stop that review, in fact, because they might now be smaller than the DUP in the Commons. The Tories, by contrast, enjoyed the advantage in the mid-20th century, which is how they kicked Clement Attlee out in 1951, but on fewer votes than Labour polled.

Such “advantages” in how efficiently a party’s vote is geographically spread come and go, albeit very slowly, and there will always be some in a constituency based first-past-the-post system. PR is the remedy to that, but it usually doesn’t suit whoever is in Downing Street – the classic catch-22 of electoral reform.

So it was always thus. If Labour really cared about every vote counting equally, they’d embrace proportional representation. Yet it usually takes a few more general election humiliations for that to become voluble trendy talk in Labour circles, the point when they decide they can’t win on their own – as in the early 1990s just before Blair swept all before him and New Labour had no further use for PR or the Liberal Democrats. On a purely partisan view, they were right, too, for about 15 years.

Labour leadership contest: Jeremy Corbyn vs Owen Smith Show all 8 1 /8 Labour leadership contest: Jeremy Corbyn vs Owen Smith Labour leadership contest: Jeremy Corbyn vs Owen Smith Jeremy Corbyn and Owen Smith clash at a leadership hustings in Gateshead, where Mr Smith was scarcely able to answer a question without being booed by Mr Corbyn’s supporters PA Labour leadership contest: Jeremy Corbyn vs Owen Smith “Jeremy himself admitted he was seven out of 10 in terms of his faith in the European Union. He said it,” said Mr Smith during his second live debate with Jeremy Corbyn Getty Labour leadership contest: Jeremy Corbyn vs Owen Smith Ballot papers are currently due to be sent out on 22 August and returned a month later, with the result being announced at a special Labour conference on 24 September Getty Labour leadership contest: Jeremy Corbyn vs Owen Smith Jeremy Corbyn supporters cheer and wave placards as the Labour Leader addresses thousands of supporters in in Liverpool, England Getty Labour leadership contest: Jeremy Corbyn vs Owen Smith Labour Party leadership candidate Owen Smith poses for a picture with supporters during a picnic for young members in London Fields, Hackney in London Getty Labour leadership contest: Jeremy Corbyn vs Owen Smith The Labour leader has a spring in his step at a leadership rally in Sunderland Screenshot Labour leadership contest: Jeremy Corbyn vs Owen Smith Labour leadership contender Owen Smith delivers a speech at the Open University in Milton Keynes, where he promised to reverse Conservative cuts set to leave millions of low paid workers thousands of pounds a year worse off PA Labour leadership contest: Jeremy Corbyn vs Owen Smith Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell has urged Owen Smith to distance himself from those saying they want to split the Labour party Getty

The lesson of all this, then, is perfectly clear for Labour. Stop sounding like bad losers and start to reach out to the Tory, Ukip, Scottish Nationalist and Lib Dem voters you are about to inherit in what were once solid seats. Hopefully, we will see many more marginals created by these changes which will enfranchise voters in rotten boroughs and, in due course, force Labour back to the centre ground and a competitive position. We will have fewer places where you can pin a Labour rosette on a labradoodle, lead it up the High Street, and have it in the Commons after enjoying a 22,000 vote majority a few weeks later. (And probably in the shadow cabinet too). Even if it bites.