The Labour Party’s attempt to process its defeat is the Christmas gift that keeps on giving. In the online echo chambers of the left, the “period of reflection” Jeremy Corbyn promised has become a period of rejection — the rejection of any suggestion that the defeat was somehow the fault of the party’s policies or its positioning. Instead, the blame, stoked by the Dear Leader’s own resentful self-righteousness, is falling on pretty much anything else you can name: Brexit, billionaires, old people, London coffee bars, postal voting fraud, the media in general and the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg in particular.

Alongside the dodgy diagnosis come the quack cures. The journalist-activist Paul Mason led the way with a 21-point checklist for the next leader that simultaneously included