If Jeremy Corbyn is the answer, what does that say about the relationship between Labour's Parliamentary Party and its ordinary members?

Obviously, I don't have a dog in the increasingly curious fight that is the contest for the Labour Party leadership. Indeed, it isn't important to me who wins, although the views they advance will be of interest in due course. But the emerging fears amongst those within the Labour Party who are stepping forward to condemn Jeremy Corbyn seem to demonstrate something that I've suspected for some time, i.e. that there is a divergence between some senior Labour figures and their membership base.

It doesn't take a genius to spot that, here in Suffolk, most of the buzz is pro-Corbyn. I follow a few leading Labour activists in these parts, and they are fairly, though not ludicrously, left-wing. They believe in redistribution, in the role of the state to support people and in taxing the rich. What I might call, traditional Labour, now I come to think about it. Admittedly, they weren't terribly successful in these parts in May, failing to win the county's two marginal seats - Ipswich and Waveney - but you do know what they believe in.

And, it seems, the Guardian-reading, granola-knitting fraternity appear to be unhappy too. They hate the Conservatives, and see the role of a Labour opposition to, well, oppose the Conservatives. Easy, really.

So, with a leadership contest to get their teeth into, you might expect the four contenders to seek to buff up their appeal to the people with the power, the ordinary party members and tack to the left. Except Liz Kendall, of course.

The Welfare and Reform Bill is an obvious place to start. It is a fairly unpleasant piece of legislation, likely to hurt the poor, the sick and the vulnerable - an obvious Labour cause. And yet, Andy Burnham and Yvette Cooper have, for whatever reason, hedged and trimmed, leaving Jeremy Corbyn as the only one attacking the Government.

If you're an angry, left-wing Labour supporter, determined to fight the evil Tories, you'll want a leader likely to do that. You are, it could be argued, left with only one credible choice.

Yvette, Andy and Liz will argue that they are credible too, and they'd be right. The problem is, the people they are credible with aren't necessarily helpful, because they mostly aren't members of the Labour Party. Supporters, maybe, but not actually members, thus not voters in the selection.

Someone will doubtless tell me that, it's about selecting a candidate who can win and be Prime Minister one day. And yes, that's what you might want in the medium and long term. But, unless you win the selection, your credibility with centrist voters is irrelevant. The dilemma is obvious, but in dwelling on the consequential stuff, three of the four candidates risk conceding the contest to the candidate least likely to be seen as widely credible.

And the apparent groundswell of support for Jeremy Corbyn appears to have come as a complete surprise to people like Margaret Beckett, who called herself a moron for nominating Corbyn in order to ensure that a range of views were heard. It might imply that she doesn't come across ordinary members that much, or that the huge increase in membership has left senior figures struggling to work out who these new members are and what they want.

Might it be that the policy of parachuting bright young things for London into safe seats in the North and Wales has left a gulf between members and MPs? Or is it more fundamental than that? This may not be a good time to get the answers...