Failed Tory leader William Hague just gave advice to Jeremy Corbyn on, umm, being successful

The results of last week's local elections, with the exception of Sadiq Khan's election as Mayor of London, were decidedly lacklustre for the Labour party (unless you ask a Labour activist, of course).

Leader Jeremy Corbyn apparently told Labour MPs in parliament on Monday evening:

We are not yet doing enough to win [the general election] in 2020... I don't expect, or even want, blind loyalty. But members and supporters expect us all to focus on taking on the Tories.

Cue, somehow, William Hague, who has conveniently popped up from the House of Lords and hobnobbing with Angelina Jolie to Torysplain to Corbyn what exactly it is he should be doing to win.

Speaking on Radio 4's Westminster Hour, Hague said that he thought Prime Minister's Questions is a good place to start:

There aren't many votes that are changed by what happens at PMQs but it does influence morale and behaviour between general elections. And it can be used by the leader of the opposition to raise morale in a party that is struggling otherwise.

Fair enough. Except for the fact that when Hague was leader of the Conservative party, Labour cruised to a second consecutive landslide general election victory in 2001. And Hague resigned as a result.

But these are mere details, obviously. Let's hear what William 'Election Winner' Hague has to say about strategy:

I think you do have to get more into, he has to get more into, the spirit of it. But the argument against that is maybe he wouldn't be any good at that. And therefore it's better to do it for him in a different way, in a lower key way, with these questions from members of the public and so on, it's a different style. Perhaps for him that is worth persisting with.

But I think the nearer we get to a general election, the more intense the debates become between the party leaders, the more that lower key style will seem to have important things missing from it. So on balance if I was him I'd adapt now to the more traditional style of vigorous debate.

We should point out that in writing this post indy100 fell down a YouTube rabbit hole of old PMQs which star Tony Blair. Hague said questioning Blair was like "pinning jelly to a wall" - and watching this, we can see why:

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