THE irony of Tony Blair claiming Jeremy Corbyn would take the Labour Party backwards should not be lost on those of us who salute the growing momentum behind the Islington North MP.

Much has been made of the fact that Corbyn was first elected in 1983.

The Thatcherite myth promoted by the political pundits ever since is that Labour lost that year because it was too far to the left.

But the drubbing of 1983 also took place after the party’s right jumped ship to form the Social Democrats — whose support that year if combined with Labour’s would have comfortably beaten Thatcher by more than 10 per cent of the vote.

In any case, another MP was first elected to Parliament in 1983 — Tony Blair.

Blair went on to become leader. After 18 years of Conservative rule he won a landslide on a manifesto pledging to renationalise the railways and refuse to implement Tory tuition fees plans.

That Blair later broke his promises, extended privatisation through catastrophic public-private partnerships and PFI deals that have cost the public dearly and led our country into bloody wars in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq does not mean he won elections for doing those things.

Indeed, the collapse of trust in Labour and the four million voters who walked away from his party during those years can be attributed to his tried, tested and failed strategy.

Nor do those who demand we learn from the man George Osborne calls “the master” seem to have noticed that the Thatcherite bonanza ended with the global economic crash in 2008, one which the Tories seem determined to repeat with their house price and debt-fuelled “recovery” at the expense of working people’s wages.

Glance at the other candidates in the Labour leadership race.

At their desire to be “tough” on welfare and immigration, their half-hearted abstention on or full-throated approval for Tory cuts, their bleating about public-sector “reform” which always seems to involve inviting a bunch of profiteering freeloaders to take public money while running our services into the ground.

What’s brave, new or modernising about that? Labour has been doing it for years. And losing.

The talking heads on news broadcasts and politics shows claim Corbyn is unelectable because he challenges the cosy Westminster consensus rather than sucking up to it.

But the extraordinary enthusiasm generated by his campaign suggests there is an appetite in this country for someone who will hold the powerful to account and put some pressure on the tiny minority who have seen their wealth swell during the recession while the rest of the country struggles to pay the bills.

His lead in yesterday’s YouGov poll — among full members as well as affiliated members and registered supporters, rubbishing allegations of entryism — is dismissed by the commentariat as Labour retreating to its comfort zone.

Like those claims to be “tough” which on closer inspection involve picking on the weakest, this “comfort zone” talk is hot air.

The “comfortable” option for a Labour leader is to mimic Blair.

Suck up to big business, fawn on Washington and make cosy deals with the monopoly media and life can be very comfortable indeed, except when you have to take time out from lucrative consultations with Middle Eastern despots to tick off your party for remembering its principles.

Challenging power and money isn’t comfortable.

On the few occasions Ed Miliband did it, he faced vilification and mockery in the press, was accused of being a weak-kneed puppet for this or that trade union and was sniped at in anonymous briefings by the Blairite undead.

The coverage of Corbyn’s campaign, with its snide personal attacks and its absurd accusations of support for terrorists, is even more despicable. But despite it all, Corbyn is currently winning.

Not as the comfort candidate for Labour. As the right one.