If you think Yvette Cooper's train journey makes her a 'class traitor', congratulations – you're helping to destroy Labour

We live in the world as it is, not as it should be. That’s why I’ve long defended Diane Abbott for sending her son to private school and why I have never much minded that Jeremy Corbyn is as posh as Jacob Rees-Mogg. These demands for ideological purity will just end up dragging the party into the mud

A row has broken out on Twitter after an image was shared which appeared to show Yvette Cooper in a first class train carriage (PA)

Yvette Cooper rode a train, and the internet’s trying to throw her under it. Yesterday, a photo began making the rounds of the Labour MP and sometime Corbyn critic riding in a first class carriage. This has brought out the usual suspects accusing her of, well, it’s not entirely clear – being a woman on a train doing business?

This is a bizarre new low for the hard left.

Of course the insinuation is that Cooper is some sort of class traitor – a “red Tory” – by treating herself to a little comfort. As a socialist and Corbyn supporter, I understand the critique of class distinctions in things like transportation as being indicative of a wider structural inequality. But come on: Yvette Cooper on a train is not an existential threat to the proletariat.

In treating herself to a first class ticket, the narrative goes, Cooper is complicit in rampant 21st-century capitalism, to which I say – duh, of course she is. So am I. So are you.

We live in the world as it is, not as it should be. That’s why I’ve long defended Diane Abbott for sending her son to private school and why I have never much minded that Jeremy Corbyn is as posh as Jacob Rees-Mogg. I can hardly blame a single mum for wanting the best for her kid, especially as she fights to make sure all kids have access to the same quality education, and I can hardly fault Jezza for his private education which gave him privileges Cooper and Abbott could only dream of.

Similarly, I’m not going to fault Cooper – an incredibly busy woman who likely had Lord knows how much work to do on her journey – for booking a first class seat.

These demands for ideological purity are hypocritical and counterproductive. Yvette Cooper is on the right side of the issues – our side, for Christ’s sake – and yet some on the hard left are hell-bent on destroying her because she dares be a woman who criticises Corbyn when she disagrees with him. So they photograph her like some sort of crap paparazzi and open her up to ridicule for daring to book a train ticket.

We are all constantly making compromises with our values. We do it when we shop at a supermarket or a chain high street clothes store or organise an anti-austerity march on our iPhones. I’m not about to judge Yvette Cooper by shooting off an angry tweet on my laptop which was probably made by little hands in an Asian sweatshop.

This petulant, vindictive and frankly creepy behaviour damages the movement and the party far more than Cooper riding in first class. It gives the media ammunition to write stories about how laughably out-of-touch many Corbynistas are, and how the party is riven with controversy. It encourages people in politics to hold their opponents – especially women – to ridiculous standards they themselves would not even meet if they critically examined their own conspicuous consumption.

Most voters don’t care what carriage someone rides in, and they – like me – are looking at this brouhaha and finding themselves utterly baffled at what the problem is.

Nobody can live up to the ridiculous standards of the hard left, and this constant demand for political purity is going to drive voters away. That’s why this “no true socialist” fallacy must end now – before it costs Labour the next election.