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The Norwich North by-election was a cack-handed, futile sacrifice. The only proficiency displayed by the Labour Party throughout the whole sorry affair was in the precision with which it shot itself in the foot. That the by-election took place at all was an unnecessary act of self-harm from a party that has lost its political compass along with its political marbles. That it arose because of the disciplinary pursuit of one MP among many who more deservedly should have been in the dock also raises serious questions about Labour’s collective moral commitment to the rules of natural justice.

Ian Gibson was judged to have brought his party into disrepute, but not by all accounts among the very voters with whom he remained popular. Whatever his culpability in the expenses scandal, it should have been measured alongside and judged on the same criteria as every Labour MP involved. This did not happen and, with every indication that no more cases will come before the party’s “star chamber” until after the Legg report drags the scandal through the mud again in the autumn, it is not about to happen soon. And there are serious doubts about whether bigger figures, such as Hazel Blears, against whom there is a prima facie case of bringing the party into disrepute, will ever be summoned.

While his four colleague MPs decided to announce they are to stand down at the next election rather than appear before the star chamber, Mr Gibson mounted a defence, in so much as he was allowed to do so. When the decision went against him, he decided the more honourable course was to stand down immediately. He was right to do so and cannot be blamed for precipitating a kamikaze contest.

The star chamber was not, and will not be, responsible for deciding who is hauled before it, which was the job of the Chief Whip and Labour’s general secretary. The party’s ruling National Executive Committee, which oversaw this debacle, has tacitly admitted its mistakes by adding its own representative and the chair of the Parliamentary Labour Party to the panel deciding on future referrals.

So much for process. The message from Norwich North is not, as Labour claims, that is was an unusual, one-off result occasioned because of the suddenness of the MPs resignation and public anger at MPs’ expenses  fiddles, although the latter was undoubtedly a factor.

The 14,000 voters who deserted Labour and the 16.5 per cent swing to a Tory candidate who presented herself as the candidate of fresh, transparent politics were redolent of Labour’s wider electoral malaise and comparable with the Crewe and Nantwich swing of 17.5 per cent last year.  It follows a 16 per cent showing in the European elections and the loss of every county council in England, not to mention the loss of the London mayoralty.

The message from Norwich North is that Labour is heading for annihilation at the next election at the hands of a party with few policies and a leader who does not represent his party’s true colours.