Kinnock's rage against democracy : the abridged version

I met this guy in Wales who said Jeremy was weird. And let me tell you, comrades, a landslide 60% majority in a one member, one vote election is AS NOTHING compared to one random bloke in Wales who thinks our leader is weird.

It's been said that Jeremy won last year with the "biggest majority ever", but in fact I defeated Tony Benn in 1988 by 89% to 11%. OK, you and I know that's not directly comparable, because that was a challenge to an incumbent leader rather than an open contest like the one Jeremy won, but let's pretend it's directly comparable because I'm on a roll here. One thing about winning by a larger majority than Jeremy managed is that I outrank him for the rest of time, and he doesn't get to demand loyalty and unity ten months after his victory in the way that I did.

You know what? There were constituency parties which voted for Tony Benn in the deputy leadership election in 1981 but which then voted for me by 82% to 18% in 1988. They changed their minds, and they were right to do so. They then changed their minds back again and voted for Jeremy in 2015. They were wrong to do that. Let me explain to you how this works - when the members get it right, we applaud their decision, and when they get it wrong, we overrule them. This is a democratic party.

Actually, the leader used to be chosen by the parliamentary party alone. We changed that system to give members and trade unionists a say. We were incredibly generous. But unfortunately the members and trade unionists abused our generosity by voting the wrong way.  So I'm afraid Jeremy can't continue without the support of the parliamentary party, because he wouldn't have been able to do that before we changed the rules. What the rules were in 1976 is obviously far more important than what the rules are now. This is a democratic party.

One hundred years ago, our party's founding fathers used the word "parliamentary" in a pamphlet. What they really meant by that was "MPs should set aside the party rules and depose their democratically elected leader if they ever encounter a random bloke in Wales who thinks he's a bit weird".

We're not leaving this party - this party belongs to US, not the bloody members.

We're alright! We're alright! We're alright!

Hey, we'd better get some plotting done here...