I completely agree with Trisher. The policies on which the 2017 election was fought were vote-winners - they were straightforward social democracy. They were, briefly: mail, rail, energy and water nationalisation; a 50% top rate tax on incomes over £123,000 a year and a 45% rate on incomes over £80.000; and the scrapping of anti-union laws. Other policies included action to reduce carbon emissions, the abolition of private schools, free tuition in HE, an end to zero-hours contracts, and a 20:1 pay ratio for all employees in the public sector. They were fully costed. (And would have gone a considerable way towards reducing the hidden costs of Tory austerity in terms of the effects of poverty: increased crime, poor health etc.) Labour came within 2,500 votes of winning. It was the biggest increase in Labour vote share since 1945. We now know (from the leaked Labour Party document) that the Blairite staffers were working against a Labour victory, diverting resources away from marginal constituencies to safe Labour seats held by right-wingers. After the shock of this near victory the media and the Blairites (i.e. most of the Parliamentary Labour Party, many of whom owed their increased majorities to Corbyn's policies) stepped up their opposition. Corbyn was smeared and ridiculed. The 2019 election was almost certainly unwinnable by a Party perceived as opposing Brexit, owing to the electoral arithmetic - the seats we needed to win, and those we needed not to lose, were Leave seats. The 2017 manifesto (like that of the Lib Dems in 2017) had promised to respect the result of the referendum and try and negotiate a deal including membership of a customs union. We lost because of the huge anger among Leavers (many in post-industrial constituencies blighted by unemployment and zero-hours jobs, abandoned since the 1980s, including by the Blair govt, which preferred to focus on deregulating the city and building up London as a financial centre), not because of the policies, which were popular. And Corbyn was demonised. What we lost was democracy. McCluskey speaks for thousands of us, hundreds of thousands. It makes no sense to say that the Left doesn't want to win. While we were out canvassing in the dark and the rain, the Blairites recently promoted by Starmer were doing the rounds of the studios talking Labour down and smearing Corbyn. Now they call for 'unity' and claim we're 'extremists'. I'm not an extremist, I'm a grandmother and I've been a teacher all my life. I want a future for my grandchildren in a country that hasn't sold their birthright to corporate interests.