“He won’t win of course.” My friend, a Keir Starmer supporter, was talking about the next general election.

Their hope was that Starmer would at least spare Labour from turning into a glorified protest movement, content to shake its fists at the dastardly Tories but with no realistic hope of forming a government. Ever.

With that job done, some bright young star of the future could finish the job of turning Britain, or more likely a rump England and Wales, back into something resembling a sensible modern democracy instead of a place where a bell ringing in central London matters more than the number of people sleeping rough on its chilly streets.

This is a narrative that started on election night. The scale of this defeat means it could take a generation for Labour to get back, opined the BBC’s breathless commentators, looking at the awful numbers on screens in front of them. Swings and such like.

It’s a story that ignores the fact that the electorate has never been more volatile. Party allegiances that were once fairly constant are now constantly shifting.

General election 2019: How the night unfolded Show all 27 1 /27 General election 2019: How the night unfolded General election 2019: How the night unfolded Boris Johnson wins biggest Tory landslide since Thatcher ...while Labour records worst result since Clement Attlee PA General election 2019: How the night unfolded 11.28pm - First result to be announced Labour holds Newcastle Central, albeit with a reduced majority, in the first result to be announced in the 2019 General Election PA General election 2019: How the night unfolded 11.33pm - Conservatives gain Blyth Valley The Conservatives gain Blyth Valley, in the North East, from Labour in the first big upset of the night. The seat had been held by Labour since 1950 BBC General election 2019: How the night unfolded 1.23am - Conservatives succeed in appealing to "Workington Man" The Tories won the North West constituency from Labour - the first time the seat has changed hands since 1979 Telegraph General election 2019: How the night unfolded 1.27am - The SNP gains Rutherglen & Hamilton West from Labour, the first of six seats they take from Jeremy Corbyn's party First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, takes a selfie with some her newly elected MP's at the Glasgow count Getty General election 2019: How the night unfolded 1.50am - The Tories gain Wrexham from Labour The first time the party have ever held the seat ITV General election 2019: How the night unfolded 1.52am - Labour wins Putney from the Conservatives The party's first gain of the night from the Tories BBC General election 2019: How the night unfolded 1.55am - The SNP gains its first seat from the Tories Winning Angus Press Association Images General election 2019: How the night unfolded 2.33am - Iain Duncan Smith holds on to seat The former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith held on to his Chingford & Woodford Green seat, but saw his majority cut almost in half to just 1,262 Reuters General election 2019: How the night unfolded 2.46am - Conservatives gain Tom Watson's old seat The Tories gained West Bromwich West from Labour in an 11.69% swing Getty General election 2019: How the night unfolded 2.50am - Bishop Auckland, a Labour seat since 1935, becomes a Tory gain Dehenna Davison won with a majority of 7,962 CharlElmore/Twitter General election 2019: How the night unfolded 2.54am - Chuka Umunna loses out to Tories The former Streatham MP who defected from Labour to the Independent Group before switching to the Liberal Democrats, lost out to the Conservative party in Cities of London & Westminster James Moreland/Twitter General election 2019: How the night unfolded 2.58am - DUP's Westminster leader beaten Nigel Dodds was beaten by Sinn Fein's John Finucane in Belfast North Getty General election 2019: How the night unfolded 3.15am - Tories lose seat to the Lib Dems Zac Goldsmith lost his Richmond Park seat to the Liberal Democrats, the party's first gain of the night PA General election 2019: How the night unfolded 3.24am - Jeremy Corbyn announces he will not lead party in future elections The Labour leader was voted back in to the Islington North seat but described the results as "very disappointing" and said he would not lead the party in any future election campaign Reuters General election 2019: How the night unfolded 3.32am - Labour's Caroline Flint loses her seat to the Tories The first time her party has not held the seat since 1922 Sky News General election 2019: How the night unfolded 3.38am - The Tories beat Labour in Wakefield Mary Creagh lost out to Imran Ahmad-Khan in a Labour seat since 1932 Reuters General election 2019: How the night unfolded 3.42am - Boris extends his majority in Uxbridge & Ruislip South The Prime Minister said: "It does look as though this One Nation Conservative Government has been given a powerful new mandate to get Brexit done." Reuters General election 2019: How the night unfolded 3.44am - The Tories gain Rother Valley and Sedgefield 3.44am - The Conservatives gained Rother Valley, a Labour seat since 1918, and Sedgefield, which was once held by former prime minister Tony Blair AFP via Getty General election 2019: How the night unfolded 3.45am - Jo Swinson loses seat The Liberal Democrat leader lost her Dunbartonshire East seat to the SNP PA General election 2019: How the night unfolded 4.25am - Conservatives retake Kensington from Labour The Tories took back the seat with a margin of 150 votes PA General election 2019: How the night unfolded 5.15am - Major scalp for the Tories 5.15am - Dennis Skinner, Labour's Beast Of Bolsover loses his seat that had been red since 1950 AFP General election 2019: How the night unfolded 6.08am - US President Donald Trump congratulates Boris Johnson on his victory US President Donald Trump congratulates Boris Johnson on his victory https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1205368801438707713 General election 2019: How the night unfolded How the UK voted after 649 0f 650 seats General Election 2019 how the UK voted after 649 0f 650 seats. See story POLITICS Election. Infographic PA Graphics PA Graphics Press Association Images General election 2019: How the night unfolded 6.23am - Acting Lib Dem leaders announced 6.23am - Sir Ed Davey and Baroness Sal Brinton were announced as the joint acting leaders of the Liberal Democrats following Jo Swinson's defeat PA General election 2019: How the night unfolded Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Carrie Symonds arrive back at Downing Street AP General election 2019: How the night unfolded State of the parties General Election 2019 state of the parties. See story POLITICS Election. Infographic PA Graphics PA Graphics Press Association Images

You only need to look at the seats that gave Boris Johnson his majority to see that writ large. If the earth can shake sufficiently to turn places like Redcar and Sedgefield blue, it can shake enough in five years to produce the opposite result.

The real reason it might take a generation, maybe longer, for Labour to win is that the party seems to be taking its cue from the 1990 England football team. That’s the one that went to Italy and got all the way to the World Cup semi-finals, where Gazza blubbed and nearly everyone south of Hadrian’s Wall and east of Offa’s Dyke loved the lot of them even though they ended up in the third place play off that no one cares about. They lost that too.

Losing gloriously is so much easier than winning, and it lets people get all misty eyed and gooey, while dreaming about what might have been.

The alternative is that Labour starts to think seriously about those people on the streets, and everyone else it’s supposed to care about, realises that Brexit turning into an almighty screw up presents an opportunity, and elects someone capable of capitalising on that.

Is Starmer that person? The knives are already out, and this is just the start of it. If he wins he’ll have five years in which every decision he’s ever taken and everything he’s ever done will be poured over in exhaustive detail in search of something that will probably looks like small beer when compared to Johnson’s multiple indiscretions.

If there’s not enough mud to stick, no matter. His opponents will dream up a few nasty fictions and then fire up the social media muck spreaders.

But a concerted outpouring of hard boiled spite is what every Labour leader faces. In Starmer’s favour is that he looks the part.

It wouldn’t be a stretch to imagine him walking into Downing Street – unlike with Jeremy Corbyn. We shouldn’t underestimate how important that is.

You can hardly say that of his chief opponent, Rebecca Long remind-me-where-the-hyphen-should-go Bailey.

She’ll let the party bask in the warm fires of self-righteousness while allowing Boris Johnson free rein to screw up as much as he likes and then screw over much of Britain in the process.

Labour members need to remember that they are being asked to choose the potential next prime minister. That means picking someone who can convince people who don’t necessarily think like them to vote for their party. Or at least not to vote against it.

A conversation that really struck me in the run up to the election campaign was one I had with an NHS ambulance driver. He was a personal enough bloke, perhaps in his 50s, and he told me he’d never voted before. He was intending to change that by putting an X in the box for the Tories to stop Corbyn. None of the arguments I tried on him worked, perhaps because they sounded hollow even to my own ears.

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That’s right, an NHS worker voting for the first time – not so much for the Tories, but against the Labour Party and against its leader.