Political self-immolation is not the preserve of the Labour party but, at present, it seems intent of proving that it is. We are witnessing something epochal in the manner in which it is coming apart through a leadership contest that is Pythonesque in its bizarre structure, leaving it wide open to abuse and ridicule.

With a "Tories-For-Corby" intrusion and talk of nationalists willing to sign up for membership on a cut-price deal, to the anguish of those who have paid their dues fully for years, we are talking of Labour’s equivalent of the dead-parrot sketch. Regardless of the accuracy of reports of the vote being contaminated, the outcome will remain dubious to supporters like me who fear we will see the party irreversibly split apart.

I first voted Labour in the 1959 General Election, not long after the Suez crisis. Since then, despite decided fluctuations in my relationship with the party and disagreeing with some of the paths it decided to follow through the decades, I remained loyal. I did so, not because I felt in a comfort zone lending it public backing. It could annoy, frustrate, anger, but nevertheless still arouse the need for support as, despite what I recognised as some failings, I still regard it, even now, as the only practical means of delivering social justice throughout the United Kingdom. Admittedly, at this juncture, the party looks as if it couldn’t run a sweetie shop.

Perhaps we should have anticipated that old sores would become public again. I might even claim to have recognised one of the first glimmers of the Blairite agenda, early on, which eventually caused internal division, and whose schismatic reverberations are being heard throughout the debates for the leaderships on both sides of the Border at present.

It was at a dinner for the business community of Glasgow, shortly after Tony Blair had become Labour leader in 1994, where I delivered a kind of warm-up speech for him and then sat back to listen. He said something I found distinctly odd coming from a Labour leader. Addressing the business audience, he suddenly stated: "You are the creators of wealth."

This seemed distinctly at odds with the traditional party blessing of the biblical "hewers of wood and the drawers of water"; the principled recognition of the salt-of-the-earth labouring man without whom societies would flounder. Mr Blair’s words seemed more Milton Friedman than Joshua 9:21.

Modernity was supposedly being introduced. There followed a whole sequence of sometimes convulsive political events that went from outright euphoria on that July night of 1994, to two bedraggled defeats in 2010 and last May, reminding us that electability mode is not to be dismissed as some unprincipled posturing but about the potential for power, for actually getting things done politically rather than carping on the sidelines to little effect.

Bump into any soul during the last General Election and it was made clear to me that Ed Milliband, a decent man to be true, simply turned too many people off. This was particularly so north of the Border where he might have been seen as a recruiting sergeant for the SNP. It was that bad.

Instead of parroting the usual cliche about "not listening to what the people were telling us", particularly the interim leader at Westminster, Harriet Harman, whose floundering on the issue of benefit caps impressed the Tories more than anybody else, the inquest should have pointed to where the real calamity was.

It may be true that people in the south were uncertain about the credibility of Labour’s economic strategy and fell for the propaganda that the recession was entirely due to their previous governance, and saw Mr Milliband as airily remote from daily life. But there was another more salient factor: the SNP.

The post-election polls tell us that one of the strongest factors in not voting Labour in the south was the fear of a possible unofficial alliance with the Nationalists. David Cameron played that cynically but persuasively, like John Major, who, acting as the Grim Reaper sent a message that seemed to suggest that the blue-woaded Scots were about to breach Hadrian’s Wall and takeover Westminster.

The cricket lover had hit a boundary for the Nationalists who wallowed in a collusion of opportunism with the Tories, whose insensitive handling of anything Scottish only aided their cause. And it was beautifully played by Nicola Sturgeon who, during the campaign, wanted to keep the idea of independence in the closet, like the "love that dare not speak its name". It worked. Try telling that to Alex Salmond, a man whose political acumen I have genuinely admired but who now sounds more and more the like the exiled Bonnie Prince Charlie in Paris simply unable to accept rejection of a cause, with a "Why didn’t they understand me?" tone to his comments. He is putting pressure on Ms Sturgeon to be his Flora Macdonald and resuscitate his pet project despite the once-in-a-generation imprimatur he stamped on last September’s referendum vote.

Whether she succumbs to inducements or pressures might largely depend on how Labour come out of this leadership mess. Although I do not diminish the importance of the election of a Scottish Labour leader, if they don’t get it right at Westminster the Scottish people might see the forthcoming political years shaped as simply the SNP versus the Tories with Labour a powerless protest group.

If there are any serious doubts about the process of the leadership election then Labour should go back to square one and scrap it. This would require an enormous dislocation of organisation and heavy reimbursement to the "casuals". In a sense, the party would deserve this burden because of its utter naivete.

There should be a new hustings with a voting format based on membership at the time of the last election. Complex? Of course. Risky? Certainly. We know Mr Milliband wanted to dilute union influence. But, like his Moses act with the stone slab, it simply wasn’t thought through. And above all it might concentrate the minds of those in power to widen the candidacy.

This could be an opportunity to drag, screaming and kicking if necessary, Alan Johnson into the hustings. We know of his reluctance. We also know the Labour party needs stability for a long period during which even the most profound philosophical debates can take place and a rush to a jarring leftist or rightist agenda can be avoided. You need only read Mr Johnson’s autobiographical writings to understand how life heaped travails upon him, not privilege, and how he prevailed. Note: he is two years younger than the woman I hope will become American president next year.

Of course, he doesn’t set the pulses racing but I suspect he would be free of the easily-rendered rhetoric on austerity that is so often bereft of full-bodied solutions. Certainly, he would not tick all the boxes for those on either wing of the party. Who would amongst the featureless alternatives? He embodies stability and essentially a pragmatism that has always been inherent in the Labour movement. It would not be an ideological rescue act. It would be one of common sense.