Bernard Ingham: Neither candidate is fit to lead Labour so who will step up?

In case you missed it, we have 
already had the Green Party in solemn conclave. It came up with a joint leadership, which is exactly what you would expect of an organisation that uncritically accepts the theory of 
global warming.

The TUC’s get-together would have escaped attention had not some dear lady tried to enlist the support of our kitten-heeled Prime Minister in a campaign against company dress policies that require women to wear high heels.

So, if you can ignore the passing of Nigel Farage as Ukip leader, we got semi-seriously down to work this week with the Liberal Democrats who are reduced to offering a home to moderate Labour MPs threatened with de-selection by Jeremy Corbyn’s Trotskyist mob.

A Liberal/moderate Labour merger has been tried before with minimal benefit. It is not calculated to set the pulse racing.

We are left with Labour and the Tories to provide the excitement. I jest.

Before you hang on to your seats – or more sensibly your wallets – I want you to bear in mind one figure. It is a cool £70bn. That is the amount that the Government is currently borrowing because we are spending far more than we are raising in tax.

And the national debt, now £1.75 trillion (a thousand billion), is rising by £5,170 every second.

Everybody between the ages of 16 and 40 should be up in arms about this rush to impoverishment because they are going to have to foot the bill – or sink into the mire of ever more expensive indebtedness.

We do not need to wait until the Labour Party conference to know what they are going to do about it.

With breathtaking irresponsibility – or sheer plankish ignorance – Owen Smith has already pledged to spend £200bn extra over a single Parliament.

That is kids’ stuff to Corbyn. He would chuck away £500bn in the belief that he could create a more prosperous, socially equal Britain.

Moreover, he is expected to defeat Smith in the Labour leadership contest to be announced on Saturday.

We have thus seriously to wonder whether the modern Labour Party – or those who seek its leadership – are certifiably mad along with the mob that worships Corbyn whenever he appears in public.

Needless to say, Theresa May’s government must be also be judged by how it approaches government debt, but that is for next week.

Labour is now in the spotlight and we who have nearly paid our last dues to society must try to keep the new poor – our grandchildren and their offspring – focussed on what matters: debt, otherwise known as chucking money down the drain.

You cannot indefinitely run a nation – its health, education, welfare, law enforcement and defence – on thin air.

Yet all sorts of campaigners from chief constables to local councillors tell us what an awful fate awaits us, or the vulnerable, if they don’t get more money.

Labour responds to these calls like Pavlov’s dogs and promises to end the Tories’ austerity. What austerity?

If life in hedonistic Britain, glued to its Apps, is austere, then I’m a peculiarly puce and cantankerous Hottentot. Words, like money, seem to have lost any meaning.

It follows from all this that the Labour Party is wasting its time voting for Corbyn or Smith. They are, by definition, unfit to be allowed anywhere near HM Treasury.

Yet it seems unlikely that many will spoil their votes by writing “Neither of these”.

This raises the question whether anyone in the Labour Party is prepared this weekend to lay out his or her 
terms for an electable Labour that recognises the realities of British 
life and the opportunity that Corbyn 
and Smith scorn to varying degrees 
to forge a resurgent post-Brexit Britain.

Where is the Labour MP who is 
willing to defy Big Brother John McDonnell and his Trot thought police, advocate a return to sound money 
and lay out how he or she would build a better educated, healthier and more socially responsible society that is newly restored to independence and self-government?

If he or she exists, then for heaven’s sake tell the nation that all is not lost. Her Majesty could then still have a loyal opposition worthy of its roots and of 
serious consideration as an elected government.

The nation – perhaps even sensible Tories who recognise that the present opposition is evidence of an unhealthy democracy – is waiting hopefully, if not expectantly.

Come on, Captain Courageous, make our day.