Have a Good NEWS

Sorry chaps, I know you're all very different and that Abbott is an Oxbridge meritocrat too, but you don't look different enough to outsiders

In a Westminster corridor last night I bumped into a battle-scarred Labour apparatchik who unleashed a torrent of invective about the fact that Diane Abbott had managed to get into the knockout stage of the party's leadership election.

Arrogant, unpopular, lazy, disloyal, the kind of foolishly leftwing MP who had done Labour so much harm since the 1980s when the future Hackney MP â€" first elected in 1987, long before any of her leadership rivals â€" cut her teeth on the destructive politics of London Labour in the Livingstone era's heyday.

These were some of the kinder epithets hurled Abbott's way. They are easy to find among MPs and party officials. Indeed, I heard a former colleague at TV-am roaring with laughter recalling how Diane â€" already a Westminster city councillor and Livingstone activist â€" got away with doing very modest amounts of work as a reporter/researcher, but always had the chutzpah to face down management complaints.

She's always had this knack. The clever, confident child of Jamaican immigrants who got to Harrow County school â€" a good old-fashioned grammar school where her friends included Michael Portillo and Clive Anderson â€" and on to Cambridge, Diane knows her market value as a black female radical. She always makes me laugh.

But, as Allegra Stratton reports today with admirable understatement, the last-minute switch, belatedly encouraged by rival candidates, "was not greeted with universal acclaim".

Indeed, my apparatchik friend claims that Abbott's constituency party was cross with her for not supporting fellow Campaign Group MP John McDonnell, the would-be candidate who stood down yesterday in favour of helping a black female contender make the cut.

I don't know if that's true, though one of her constituency activists sidled up to me the other day to complain about her TV activities â€" "with Portillo" â€" and to remark along the lines of "if you close your eyes she could be a Tory Lady Bountiful".

All the same, well done, John McDonnell, say I. His action was the catalyst that rescued the left, the sisterhood and the wider Labour movement from a battle of the clones. Sorry chaps, I know you're all very different and that Abbott is an Oxbridge meritocrat too, but you don't look different enough to outsiders.

In 2007 the Labour left failed to agree on a single nominee and, I recall being told at the time, it was erratic Michael Meacher who tried McDonnell's patience. But, even disregarding McDonnell's "assassinate Thatcher" one-liner on the hustings this week, there's no doubt that the campaign will be better served by Abbott's lively presence over the coming months.

I even think it will force the clones into doing better. My apparatchik friend vehemently disagrees with this and will not have been pleased by the applause Abbott got at the New Statesman's London hustings last night. Allegra's report can be augmented by the NS's own from James Macintyre here. What he fears is that she will draw a lot of the old poison and division back into Labour's ranks. Plenty of others share that fear, as I heard at a Fabian Society reception after leaving my apparatchik friend â€" not the Fabian type.

As so often, Neil Kinnock was the keynote speaker and, as so often, he spoke for too long. There were flashes of brilliant, soaring eloquence and a TV editor could have got a fantastic 10 minutes out of the 30. But as an old Kinnock fan at the back whispered: "Neil's speeches don't reach a conclusion because he doesn't have one." So he is prone to repetition.

But, as usual too, the former Labour leader (1983-92) had relevant things to say. During the election campaign the party had failed to connect its achievements â€" in health, education and much else â€" with its enduring values as the party of opportunity, security and justice for all, the party of liberty.

He told a good story about visiting the Rifleman's Arms in his old Valleys constituency â€" Bedwellty, later Islwyn â€" after the disastrous 1983 election when his share of the vote dropped to a mere 57% (it peaked at 75%) and a politically hopeless old schoolmate had stood for the SDP and got an impressive 9,100 votes.

When Kinnock had bought pints for four steelworkers just off their shift â€" legally permitted again once the voting was over â€" he asked them which way they'd voted now they'd got their drinks. Two looked shifty and said SDP. Why? Well, "if there had been any risk of losing we'd have voted for you … but Labour was talking to itself. You cannot as a party treat us with neglect,'' was the drift of their answer.

Always a good point and Kinnock â€" who has backed Ed Miliband â€" said the election process must be used to shape "a credible and practical set of policies" rooted in authentic values.

Since he treated himself to a sideswipe at the posturing in 1983 of Tony Benn â€" not named, but everyone listening knew â€" I assume he's not an Abbott fan either. Diane would have been a nuisance to his leadership in 1987-92.

But he was right to mock Benn's famous claim that 8 million people had voted for socialism â€" the 1983 manifesto was pretty leftwing â€" when the outcome was a Thatcher majority of 143 and what he called "2000% of the power".

The consequences of that defeat echo through the present contest. Why does a candidate need 12.5% of the parliamentary Labour party to stand?

Partly to ensure they have a solid base among MPs with whom they will have to work more closely than with trade union and activist members of the electoral college. But also partly to prevent disruptive spoiler candidacies. The rules were changed as a result of Benn's disloyal challenge to Denis Healey for the deputy leadership to Michael Foot in 1982 â€" narrowly defeated by the brave votes of Kinnock and other realistic leftwingers who understood the strength of a balanced leadership ticket.

For his pains, Kinnock, once the darling of the annual Tribune rally had coins â€" 30 pieces of silver â€" hurled at him on the stage during that year's event. I was there. I saw it. The following year Benn lost his Bristol seat and was not there to challenge Foot's Welsh protege for the top job.

All this is history, but it is potent history and some readers will angrily reject my version of events above. For myself I can only say I always supported the idea of a wider franchise for electing party leaders â€" even the Tories do it now â€" and supported all-female shortlists.

So I am happy that Diane Abbott, at 56 the oldest contender by a decade, is still in the race; things are never dull in her presence. But I also look forward to her career and political record attracting significant attention too. Did you know that Jonathan Aitken, no less, is a godfather to her son?

Someone last night said in my hearing: "God, what if she won?" Quick as a flash, I replied: "It might be a blessing in disguise for all concerned. Let's face it, unless the coalition blows up faster than most of us expect, the job of Labour leader isn't going to be very important for a while. Diane could keep the seat warm for one of the stronger candidates who would otherwise perish on the wire."

Smart-arse remarks like that go down like a lead balloon. It isn't going to happen, but Abbott's arrival changes the dynamics of the contest and quite possibly the result.