There’s never been a better time to join Labour

Labour had a good night on Sunday. Not Gordon Brown, not Ed Balls, not the Milibands, nor any other of the other ministers who will have been bundled out of office within the next 12 months. They are, of course, doomed. For them ahead lies nothing but months of humiliation, followed, for many of them, by unemployment. But for the Labour party as an institution it is another matter. In spite of suffering an even heavier drubbing in the local and European elections than had been predicted, the Labour party on Sunday ensured its survival and recovery to power some time in the 2020s. I am so sure of this that I would advise anyone in their twenties who is contemplating a political career to join up at once. Given that Labour asks under-27s to pay a subscription of only £1 a year, booking your place in a future cabinet now will only cost you the price of a coffee.

I know it might seem a little perverse to talk up the Labour party in this week of all weeks. As Daniel Finkelstein quipped on the BBC coverage of the Euro elections, the biggest winner of the night was Michael Foot: Gordon Brown has managed to make the former leader’s performance in the 1983 general election look good. But amid the carnage of Labour’s European and local elections, and the triumph of two BNP candidates as MEPs, most pundits missed the biggest story of the evening: the complete and utter failure of the Liberal Democrats.