THE best way to continue getting wrong answers is to go on asking the wrong questions and little confirms this dilemma better than Labour’s potential leaders.

Labour was all but wiped out in Scotland at the hands of a party that presented itself convincingly as a better bet to combat austerity. It dropped votes in target seats in England and Wales to Ukip, the Tories and Greens. Ukip, Greens and SNP worked a similar seam that Labour had let down its core supporters who should look elsewhere to plug the gap.

The obvious conclusion is that, however many votes Labour plundered from the entrails of the decomposing Liberal Democrats, it lost nearly as many from the heart of working class. Where Labour shed support to the Tories, it is worth examining the possibility that presumed hostility to big business could have played a role.