Labour’s sitcom of a leadership race could be ‘the one where Long-Bailey and Rayner inherit the party’

Even at the earliest of leadership election doors, Labour seems headed towards another misjudgement of audience mood.

If the populace is to have its very first Labour female flatmate sitcom, the preference would feature Emily Thornberry and Caroline Flint.

Exactly why they move in together isn’t clear yet (I started working on the pitch 90 seconds ago), but that hilarious scenario would emerge from the legal action Thornberry is threatening Flint for claiming she (Thornberry) referred to her (Flint’s) constituents as stupider than hers (Thornberry’s).

Perhaps during the final summing-up, the pair lock eyes, sense a deep level of intimacy in their enmity, and rush to the nearest lettings agency to celebrate.

Or maybe the jury does get to deliver its verdict – I’m spitballing here – and the judge sentences the loser to pay restitution by moving in with the winner and serving as her butler.

That premise isn’t remotely original – Seinfeld fans will recall the “The Pitch” episode, in which Jerry and George attempt to sell NBC a pilot for “The show about nothing” – so it might hook the good folks at ITV comedy.

The Labour flatmates sitcom that is likelier to be commissioned, if only by the party’s members, has less broad comedic appeal.

If it hasn’t already been taken, I’d like to suggest Friends as the title for a show expected to launch in March with “The One Where Rebecca And Angela Inherit The Labour Party”.

The moment Angela Rayner excused herself from the contest to support her BFF and cohabitee Rebecca Long-Bailey, the latter’s odds of succeeding Jeremy Corbyn narrowed sharply.

Long-Bailey is now the odds-on favourite, though as the incumbent regime’s chosen one, she probably should have been so even before Rayner’s “sisterly” feelings persuaded her to settle for a crack at deputy.

Corbyn’s inner circle may not be all that when it comes to winning external elections that cannot be fixed. But with internal elections that can, they are highly adept at operating the levers of power.

This election will be as tightly controlled and manipulated as the rules permit. Any rules that don’t suit their purpose will doubtless be finessed to maximise Long-Bailey’s inherent advantage as the candidate of the left in an election decided by an electorate of the left.

Whether a member of Corbyn’s circle and John McDonnell protege is the ideal person to rebuild support among those who so decisively rejected them last week, who shall say? Some would see a clean break as cathartic acknowledgement of failure, if not an act of expiation.

But at either end of the British political spectrum, the reflex reaction to crushing defeat is to double down on its causes. After the second New Labour landslide of 2001, Tory members concluded that the problem lay in not being nastily right-wing enough, and plumped for Iain Duncan Smith. That went well.

The concern about Long-Bailey isn’t that she is a leftie mirror image of IDS. From her impressive cameo as a TV debate stand-in, she’s 85 IQ points, at least, away from that.

She seems sharp and principled, as a cheery tweet launching #TeamBecky agrees, not to mention articulate, decent and tough. She might make a fine Labour leader at the right time. But is this the right time to challenge the Einsteinian definition of insanity, by doing the same thing on the politico-philosophical front in expectation of a different result?

Assuming she triumphs and Rayner becomes her deputy, the Monica and Rachel template suggests they’ll get on better than Corbyn and Tom Watson during their patchy reboot of The Odd Couple.

If anything, in fact, they are far too similar to run as a double act. The point of a presidential ticket is to balance perceived electoral weakness by contrast.

In 2008, a young, inexperienced black man went for a vastly experienced old white guy. Another old white man chose an unseasoned young woman. All right, that didn’t work out spiffingly. But until “I can see Russia from my house”, you understood why John McCain rolled the dice with Sarah Palin.

As for Tony Blair, he did know the value of the ticket, and artfully deployed John Prescott to reassure the left, however falsely, that Labour’s core traditional values would be defended.

On that basis, entrusting Labour to a double act born a few months and Manchester miles apart, and from loosely the same wing of the party, may not be the directest route to messaging its rediscovered zeal for broadening its reach.

Swings and roundabouts, though, because recruiting the rest of the cast should be fun. Richard Burgon’s powerhouse intellect makes him a natural for Joey, and Ed Miliband is virtually a doppelganger for Ross.

Chandler and Phoebe might take some finding, but the eccentric upstairs neighbour banging cantankerously on the ceiling won’t. Barry Gardiner will be cast to type as Mr Heckles.

Assuming series one is launched on schedule, there will be so many laughs on the road to season five, when the audience wearily leaves the sofa for the despondent trudge to the polling booth. We would, much like Adele, wish nothing but the best for them.

But I can’t help fearing the idea of the party continuing on the same ideological path in the hope of reaching the diametrically opposite destination.

Beneath the surface, the sitcom blueprint for these flatmates isn’t Friends after all, but the other New York classic of the era. One of the arch rules of Seinfeld, according to Larry David, was absolutely no learning lessons.