I sympathise with Laura Pidcock on a personal level. She was Labour MP for Durham North West, normally a safe Labour seat but was issued her P45 on general election day by her constituents. She spent just two and a half years in Parliament and has now been left wondering, "What went wrong?"
If her claims in the Journal just before Christmas are anything to go by, she is going to struggle to answer the question above. According to her, Tony Blair was the cause of Labour's general election meltdown. Quite why Blair should suddenly reappeared as the bogeyman 12 years after retiring as both PM and MP is not explained by Ms Pidcock. According to her, his legacy "hangs around this party like a millstone." There could be an argument for saying Blair's legacy was damaging to Labour in the 2010 general election though I suspect the failure of Brown would have been a bigger factor in Labour's defeat then. Yet, to blame Blair for losing her seat four general elections after Blair had left office was, to say the least, to miss the point, and at worst, is an amazing lack of ability to deal with the real world.
Pidcock is not alone in the Labour party in looking for excuses rather than reasons for her party's failure. There are many others who can't look with any degree of reality at the causes of their defeat. And as long as these people are in the majority in the Labour party, they will remain on course for a 5th and 6th general election defeat in a row.
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