Following Harriet Harman’s admission that the purpose of the Labour Party is to outflank the tories at the expense of any allusion to principle, she might have just put the final nail in the coffin of the party, That said, the heart of the beast hasn’t stopped beating quite yet and it could be revived if leadership contender Jeremy Corbyn comes to its rescue by winning the forthcoming battle.

Harman’s claim that she would not oppose Tory benefit cuts was only surprising in the sense that she was being frank about it. Should Labour die and what remains of the corpse align themselves with the Greens and other progressives, the English people will be reliant on the SNP coming to their aid on their behalf.

Just as the bankers are now in a stronger position than they were prior to Syriza in Greece coming to power as a result of the former’s usurping of national Greek sovereignty, so too will the Tories should Corbyn lose..

In challenging the Osborne/Harman narrative, what used to pass as positively centrist, is now regarded as dangerously revolutionary, particularly when the issue of raising taxes for the rich is concerned..This is what Corbyn had to say to Sky’s Adam Boulton yesterday evening:

Corbyn:

“I think we have made a mistake on giving so much ground to Osborne, particularly on the treatment of young people in the budget and treatment of people in larger families. Why should the third and subsequent amount of children be penalized depending on the random date in which they happen to be born?

Boulton:

“Why should the tax payer support larger families”?

Corbyn:

“We have a system in which even Thatcher signed a European convention protecting the rights of the child. What number were you”?

Boulton:

“I’m playing devils advocate. This is only going to be introduced for future families and that they have a choice as to how many children they have. Surely encouraging families to have a smaller amount of children must be a good thing.”

Corbyn:

“I agree. But they don’t need encouragement. People having small families happens anyway. The average family size over the last 50 years has come down. But because of the idea that there are some large families, that children should be penalized for being born, is simply not right. We could cut rising welfare expenditure by capping rents thus saving on housing benefit and improving drastically the living wage thereby undercutting the subsidising of low pay paid through benefits – a system that currently works to the advantage of large multinationals like Tesco. We need to pay people more so the tax yield is greater and the economy does better. It’s a win-win situation.”

Boulton:

“How are you going to pay for it”?

Corbyn:

“We have to raise the taxes of the wealthiest. Over the last few years, child poverty has increased, homelessness has increased, the use of food banks has increased and overcrowding in houses has increased. So we need a different and more humane approach to welfare.”