At long last, the Conservatives are clearing up the mess New Labour made of our gambling laws. In December 2020, the current government promised the most comprehensive revision of them since 2005 — to ensure they are “fit for the digital age”. The White Paper is reportedly due to be published at the end of this month.

When Blair’s permissive legislation came into force in 2007, it shifted gambling from being an activity that was tolerated to something that was actively promoted and marketed, in order to stimulate demand. The attempt to “modernise the regulation of gambling for today’s world” had apparently good intentions. In 2004, Blair demanded that opponents of his reforms “go and talk to the people of Blackpool who urgently need the regeneration” that he claimed would be brought about by resort-style super casinos. Gambling, in his eyes, was a vehicle for economic development. He did not represent public opinion in this respect; the vast majority opposed the introduction of more opportunities to gamble.

Gordon Brown ditched the plans for Las Vegas-style super-casinos when he became Prime Minister, meaning Blair’s “modernising” legislation achieved just three notable things: it legitimised Fixed Odds Betting Terminals (FOBTs) in betting shops, which had previously operated outside of the law. This gave bookmakers permission to offer machines of up to £100 every 20 seconds on every high street. It also loosened the restrictions on gambling advertising, while also removing the need to prove there was demand for a new gambling outlet in order to acquire a license to open one.

There were no provisions to adequately regulate gambling websites based offshore, which accounts for practically all of them. The justifying logic was that the gambling took place where the server was located: people accessing these sites from Britain were supposedly gambling in Gibraltar or the Isle of Man. This ludicrous loophole enabled massive betting brands to base themselves in tax havens, advertise to consumers in Britain and build their businesses free of tax or proper regulation — without even providing jobs in the country it had market access to. Britain was exporting billions of pounds every year to these companies, and all we got in return was a massive upswing in the most harmful effects of gambling.

Public Health England (PHE) estimates there to be at least one gambling related suicide a day, with gambling harms impacting not just finances but relationships, employment prospects, mental wellbeing and physical health. PHE calculate the resulting cost to government to be in excess of £1.2 billion a year. YouGov’s polling of 18,000 people suggested that 2.8% suffered from a gambling addiction — scaled up across the UK, this is the equivalent of 1.4 million people, with a further 1.5 million at-risk.

Labour did very little to rectify some of the more obvious downsides of its gambling legislation. It wasn’t until 2014, under the Tory-Lib Dem coalition government, that a “point of consumption” tax was levied on all gambling profits derived from this country. Sadly, it couldn’t be backdated to 2005. Many of the firms remain offshore to this day, which means they still don’t pay UK corporation tax. The coalition government also stipulated that online gambling firms had to be licensed by the Gambling Commission if they wanted to advertise in Britain — a totally obvious regulation New Labour never bothered to insist on.

True, it was Labour that formed the Gambling Commission, but it did a pretty poor job of it. The regulatory body has been criticised by the National Audit Office, the Public Accounts Committee, the House of Lords Gambling Industry Select Committee and MPs from all parties — the running theme being that the Gambling Commission has been “outgunned” by the sector it’s supposed to have a handle on.

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“Light touch” regulation doesn’t work in online gambling. As even the most ardent neoliberal would recognise, the sector cuts across the logic of the free market: it is a win or lose contract between the consumer and the vendor. Given the unlevel playing field between individual and corporation, regulation that upholds consumer protection has to be rigorous.

Yet the Gambling Commission has seen its role as to facilitate the industry’s growth. Consumer protection has been abysmal. Even free bets aren’t free, with gambling firms insisting on obscene so-called “wagering requirements” before people can withdraw their winnings. There have been many cases of people being credited a bonus when they deposit funds into a gambling account, only to find that they are unable to withdraw their winnings unless they bet the total value of what they deposited 99 times — and on products like slots, which have a fixed margin, meaning it’s impossible to win. The Competition and Markets Authority called this “a con”, but the Gambling Commission still permits these unfair terms and conditions.

It also fails to protect the most vulnerable. Online gambling firms derive 86% of their profit from the 5% of people who are addicted or at-risk. In “VIP schemes”, personal account managers encourage people, including those known to be addicted, to gamble as much as possible. Firms profile their customers using third party data and betting history, in order to tailor marketing to gambling addicts who will spend the most. The accounts of gamblers who consistently beat the bookmakers are closed or restricted.

And the most addictive product, online slots, is persistently promoted. Our outdated gambling laws mean there are no limits to stakes online as there are on machines, meaning people are able to gamble thousands in seconds. More than half of the sector’s £7 billion annual profits come from online slots, which are more harmful than any other product — 45% of those who engage with them become problem or at-risk gamblers.

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Compared to the revenues of gambling companies, fines from the regulator are paltry. When they are levied, companies simply see them as a cost of doing business. 888, which is in the process of acquiring William Hill, confirmed that the latter has set aside £15 million in anticipation of a fine. (William Hill is the subject an ongoing license review related to social responsibility and money laundering obligations.) 888 has agreed to pay £2.2 billion for William Hill’s betting shops and its two million online customers based in Britain.

Having unleashed this hellscape, Labour sought to make amends under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership by proposing to review online gambling and to cut the maximum stake on FOBTs from £100 to £2 a spin. But it was Tory Minister Tracey Crouch who delivered the latter policy in 2019, which has led to a 50% reduction in people citing these machines when they present for gambling addiction treatment. This correlates with a 40% reduction in revenue from FOBTs, with no commensurate uptick in other products. Police call outs to betting shops were also down by 38% in the year after the stake cut was enacted.

Building on the success of this, Boris Johnson’s government introduced the ongoing gambling review. But while its scope chimes with policies proposed by Tom Watson when he served under Corbyn, the Labour Party is currently very quiet on the issue.

Watson proposed a series of radical reforms to gambling laws, to bring them into the digital age. This included the introduction of a Gambling Ombudsman to improve consumer protections and the requirement that online slots, like physical machines, have stake limits. He also suggested forcing all gambling companies to reapply for their licenses, and a statutory levy on gambling firms to fund research, education and treatment. This agenda has been adopted practically wholesale by the Conservatives. Since leaving Parliament, Watson has joined as an adviser to the board of Flutter, the betting giant that owns SkyBet and Paddy Power.

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He is part of a trend. Former Labour MPs Michael Dugher and Anna Turley have respectively become CEO and consultant to the Betting and Gaming Council. Former Ed Balls adviser Gary Follis also works there. Meanwhile, Keir Starmer’s refusal to publish donors to his leadership campaign until after the contest had concluded meant contributions from Peter Coates, the founder of Bet365, couldn’t be taken into account by party members until it was too late. Perhaps Labour’s ongoing silence on the issue of gambling reform is the price paid by a cash-strapped party not wanting to upset too many billionaires who might be able to bail them out come election time.

It won’t help them win votes, though. YouGov’s tracker consistently shows that over 60% of people feel unfavourably towards the gambling industry, while just 7% have a favourable attitude. There is also huge public support for limiting stakes for online slots, and for affordability checks when someone loses more than £100 in a month, which would prevent harm in the middle of a cost of living crisis by curtailing escalating losses in accordance with what’s affordable to an individual. Polling from Survation found support for these reforms to cut across geographical lines, with substantial appeal in “red wall” areas. The pollster also found that 70% of Tory MPs agree that unaffordable losses should be prevented, 64% agreed that gambling should be more regulated, and 68% agreed with introducing stake limits online.

In other words, while Labour remains silent, gambling reform is actively supported by Boris Johnson’s backbenchers. It could therefore become a populist dividing line, putting the government on the side of the public while the opposition appeases offshore corporations. And if Labour does choose to sit idly on the sidelines while the Tories rectify Blair’s mistakes, it will be clear to the public that no lessons have been learned by a party seemingly more interested in working with the gambling lobby than challenging an industry that’s exploiting the nation.

51 years later McCluskey, now the leading trade unionist of the last decade, shows no regret as he reveals this scam in his memoir, Always Red (published to coincide with the annual conference of the Labour Party he helped to ruin). Indeed, he seems almost proud of getting away with it — his account mentions no comeuppance for the con. That’s fitting for a man whose career in politics and public life has been defined by two things: indifference to the consequences of his own actions, and the power of money.

Other people’s money, that is. Until recently, McCluskey headed Unite, and his liberal use of the union’s funds is a motif of this book. Even if you’re familiar with the grubby business of political party funding, there’s something startling about McCluskey’s lordly accounts of committing vast sums of his member’s money to whatever politician or campaign he’d chosen to favour. When Tom Watson spends the £50k Len handed him for a campaign, Len casually tosses him another £20k. When Alan Johnson calls about a donation to the Remain campaign, Len agrees £250k — the legal maximum — in one phone call.

The impression of McCluskey as a feudal lord, treating Unite as his fiefdom, grows with his account of using its resources to look after his own affairs. He criticises various adversaries for using expensive lawyers to fight their cause: when a challenger to the Unite throne seeks legal advice “from a top QC” it’s a sign of his “bottomless pockets” and “establishment” backing. Yet McCluskey recalls making repeated use of Unite’s in-house lawyers to threaten journalists who sought to report — accurately — his relationship with Karie Murphy, a close aide to Corbyn. If that relationship was a wholly private matter, why did the union spend members’ money concealing it?

All this is chickenfeed, of course, compared to the millions McCluskey spent propping up the man who would lead Labour to its worst defeat since 1935.

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For a book over-heavy on meetings, deals and chatter among and about politicians, there’s no clear explanation of why McCluskey thought Jeremy Corbyn was right — or just right for Unite. He backs Corbyn because he’s not a “Blairite” or from the “Labour Right”, a group that seemingly includes Ed Miliband — whose leadership campaign he backed — and any other Labour figure who doesn’t agree with Len. Indeed, McCluskey’s primary aim here appears to be to insist that he was right about, well, everything, despite the dreadful consequences of his choices.

Tony Blair gave Labour 13 years in power in part by breaking the unions’ grip on the party — a political success for which many in the Labour movement will never forgive him. McCluskey, interested in power as well as money, appears to see the primary job of a union leader today as reversing those changes. His aim, he writes, was to give Unite more “influence” over Labour. That influence is an end in itself — how it might be used, in the interests of Unite’s fee-paying members, is never explained. All that matters is that Len has senior Labour people at his beck and call. At least Corbyn was consistent in his principles; McCluskey offers far less ideological clarity. His politics are those of the back-scratching backroom deal.

Inevitably, then, McCluskey’s memoir reveals some stark inconsistencies. He expresses interest in Blue Labour, and its regard for traditional “family and flag” values. But without pause, he showers praise and cash on Corbyn, whose internationalism, pacifism and sympathy for identity politics is diametrically opposed to those values. He privately supports Scottish independence in 2014 while funding the No campaign. He thinks EU membership is bad for British workers, but campaigns to Remain.

His post-2016 position — to my mind convincing — was that Labour should commit to accepting Brexit, dismissing a second referendum or other schemes to overturn the result. If his arguments had won out, Labour might not have lost quite so much ground with its traditional voters. Yet even Unite’s money can’t buy him enough influence to make that the party’s policy. He blames John McDonnell and Diane Abbott: “Corbyn now had his two closest friends in politics, one in each ear, telling him to move on the issue — and that’s what he did, committing to a second referendum in all circumstances.”

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Not all Labour MPs backed Corbyn’s position, and McCluskey reports meeting members of the group who wanted to support Theresa May’s deal and “get Brexit done” long before the slogan was coined. They ask for Unite’s backing to go against party policy and deliver the Brexit McCluskey says he wants. But he refuses. Then he blames them for obeying the leadership. “They talked a good game but, whenever it came to the crunch, almost all of them fell into line with the whip,” he writes, failing to note that he funds and supports that very whip.

As a major player in the Corbyn project, McCluskey needs an excuse for its shattering failure in 2019 — and Brexit, rather than the infighting he’s implicated in, is it. In his account, Corbyn’s muddled position on leaving the EU was the sole reason for Labour’s collapse, especially in its working-class heartlands. To support this argument, McCluskey offers some second-hand anecdotes about Unite members’ dismay over Brexit, including some quotes that to my weary ear sound about as convincing as his testimony about his youthful broken arm. “At a meeting of the stewards I was told: ‘Jeremy is regarded as a traitor over Brexit’,” McCluskey recalls, conveniently.

He concludes with the bizarre claim that he and Unite were “vindicated” by the electoral catastrophe that he funded and “influenced”. Far from accepting any responsibility, he repeats a favoured Corbynite talking point about his man “winning the argument”, as if that makes up for reducing Labour to barely 200 Commons seats.

He also overlooks or cynically downplays the other major factors in that 2019 humiliation — most grievously anti-Semitism. “No evidence that antisemitism was more widespread in the Labour Party than in wider society has ever been produced. All the evidence that exists suggests the opposite,” he writes, dismissing the views of several Jewish Labour MPs, peers and members, and the Board of Jewish Deputies, and the Community Safety Trust, and the Jewish Chronicle. What, after all, do they know about anti-Semitism?

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Also dismissed is the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, which found that Labour, under Corbyn, had been “responsible for unlawful acts of harassment and discrimination”. Far more important to McCluskey is that accusations of institutional bigotry “demoralised” Corbyn and — worse — “devastated” poor Len himself. Will no-one think of the real victims here?

Besides, even if Labour was a little bigoted, voters didn’t care, in McCluskey’s telling. “I don’t believe antisemitism,” he writes, “was much of an issue on the doorsteps of Darlington or Doncaster in the 2019 general election.” Perhaps McCluskey, devoid of principles in politics, finds it hard to believe others might have them. Or perhaps this is just part of his wider habit of claiming the support of whoever he likes for whatever position he likes.

McCluskey has a habit of grandiosely speaking for the “ordinary workers” of Britain, the idealised grafters he allegedly represents. Despite a six-figure salary and a life spent in London offices and upmarket restaurants (as an aside in the book, he says he’s partial to Black and Blue in Borough Market, where a ribeye steak is £31), McCluskey insists that he retains a gut understanding of the workers, who, naturally, agree with him in all things.

But, strangely for a book by a union leader, Always Red pays little attention to trade unions and their members, at least in contemporary Britain. There’s lots of rose-tinted memories of earlier decades, and too many dull stories about the backroom politicking that saw McCluskey reach the top of the movement. But precious little about where unions stand now, and what their future might be.

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McCluskey led Unite for a decade, until this year. He proudly reports that under his leadership, its funds grew tenfold to almost £500 million, “more than all the other British unions combined”.  For him, financial clout is all — and apparently more important than the number of people who actually support him and his union. He fails to mention some other numbers. In 2007, when Unite was formed by merging Amicus and the TGWU, it had 2 million members. Its most recent official filing shows it now has just 1.1 million members paying into its general fund.

That’s in keeping with overall union membership, which remains in long-term decline. Today barely 13% of private sector workers are union members. Perhaps the most stunning figure on the unions’ decline is that members are now more likely to be university graduates (28%) than to have no qualifications (17%). Education is the dividing line of our age, and trade unions speak for those at the top, not the bottom.

Why have those workers least able to bargain for higher wages turned away from the Labour movement?  Could that trend be stopped or reversed? Union sympathisers like to explain the decline by pointing to legislation and the growing power of big employers, which makes “exploitation” easier. But if that’s the case, why haven’t supposedly exploited workers become more inclined to seek the unions’ protection? McCluskey offers a few cursory paragraphs about automation and technology, and a lot of blaming Thatcher and the Right-wing media — but makes no real attempt to answer such questions. He’s more interested in himself.

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And money, of course. He’s not the only one. Could it be that the unions, in search of members with solid and reliable wages to pay membership dues, have been more interested in representing public sector workers? Almost 52% are now union members. And the public sector now has twice as many high-skilled roles than the private sector, since many jobs — teachers, nurses, the police — now require a degree.

No doubt those workers need representation, in the workplace and Parliament. But a labour movement that focuses on relatively secure and affluent state employees, while neglecting those in more precarious positions, is a movement that has lost its way. The “Blairites” share some blame for that, but it’s been more than a decade since Ed Miliband disowned Blair’s “naive” faith in markets — and 14 years since the man himself left office. 2019 was the nadir of the modern Labour movement, and that’s the responsibility of those who led it at the time.

It was Corbynism that turned Labour into the party of the middle class. But he was aided and abetted by the man who was being paid to speak for British workers — who instead spent millions of pounds of their money trying to buy himself influence over a political project that repelled them. And McCluskey is about as sorry for it as for lying about that broken arm.

This year was no different. To observe the general atmosphere of anticipation and positivity around the streets, bars and meeting places of Brighton, one could be forgiven for assuming that Labour is on the brink of being swept to power by an enthusiastic populace desperate for us to build the New Jerusalem. Whereas the truth is that we are consistently trailing in the opinion polls and going nowhere fast – a failing all the more inexcusable considering the government’s current disarray.

The week got off to the worst possible start with the aborted defenestration of Tom Watson. There is no doubt that Watson has, to the fury of many inside the party, frequently sought to use his deputy leader post to undermine Jeremy Corbyn and present himself as an alternative leader. But instead of seeking to remove him from office via a democratic process, his opponents – the Momentum group and its outriders – resorted to the worst kind of bureaucratic manoeuvring. They couldn’t silence the man, so they tried to abolish his position. In doing so, however, they showed themselves to be undemocratic authoritarians who were frightened of a dissenting voice. The lesson of history, plainly lost on them, is that you don’t win the battle of ideas by purging people.

It is abundantly clear that the Corbynites now wield control over huge chunks of the party. So far as there is resistance, it comes principally from the Parliamentary Labour Party, which provides a redoubt for those – and there are many – who remain faithful to the creed of Blairite centrism.

But what is also clear, is that neither side truly understands Labour’s current dilemma – how to build that coalition between the party’s traditional working-class base and less tribal middle-class voters which is a precondition of electoral success. Or, if it does, it offers no credible strategy for achieving it.

The centrists seem to think that power will be won through a return to the pre-referendum status quo – a status quo that did so much to alienate working-class voters from the party and set in train the events which have led to our nation’s current polarisation; whilst the Corbynites believe that all we have to do is keep hammering on about elitism and economic injustice, and the voters will flock to us.

Both are mistaken. Labour will only win again when it offers a programme that combines its entirely laudable policies for a fairer economy alongside a social agenda that recognises the sense of cultural fragmentation and deracination brought about by globalisation, and seeks to build in its place a new, post-liberal politics of communitarianism. In short, it needs to marry its economic radicalism with a return to the politics of belonging.

There were signs in Brighton that some people in the party are beginning to understand this. It was heartening to see fringe meetings organised by some groups, including the Fabian Society, focusing on these very questions. A clutch of MPs too – often those representing constituencies which voted Leave – are beginning to address these issues. Stephen Kinnock has been particularly vocal in arguing that the party’s – indeed, the entire political establishment’s – relentless promotion of liberal cosmopolitanism has pushed away voters in the more traditional working-class constituencies and risks tipping the country into a full-scale culture war.

When set alongside efforts to subvert the result of the referendum result, it’s easy to see why the atmosphere in these communities is becoming increasingly toxic. And, maddeningly, Labour did nothing to ameliorate the tensions on this issue this week. On the contrary, the party’s absurd and anti-democratic position on Brexit will serve only to further disenchant those whom we should be moving heaven and earth to win back, as indeed will the spectacle of senior Labour MPs, including shadow cabinet members, heading a march around Brighton calling for a ‘People’s Vote’.

None of this is to say that nothing good came out of the conference. In fact, several policy commitments – such as the reduction in the working week, abolition of prescription charges and introduction of free personal care – are forward-thinking measures, entirely in keeping with the party’s traditional values.

But sadly these announcements were overshadowed by the conference’s decision to support motions that will make many voters recoil and serve to justify their perception of Labour as a party in the grip of militant hardliners. In particular, the pledges to extend free movement at a time when millions are demanding proper control over immigration; grant voting rights in elections to non-UK nationals, thereby undermining the very concept of citizenship; and abolish private schools — a sinister and authoritarian measure that has no place in a free society — will do nothing to help propel Labour towards power.

In making such controversial commitments, Labour fell into the classic trap of appealing to the activists within its own ranks, rather than to the wider country.

The air in Brighton was thick with fashionable buzzwords such as ‘diversity’, ‘inclusivity’ and ‘equality’ — the type of terminology that has become the stock in trade of the modern Left, but which has little resonance out there in the provinces of the nation.

The party, if it is to ever reconnect with its one-time core vote, needs urgently to start speaking the language of ‘place’, ‘community’, ‘belonging’, ‘work’ and ‘family’ — the things that hold real meaning for people and which they wish their politicians to focus on. Because, ultimately, until its own language and priorities match those of the millions for whom it purports to speak, the Labour party cannot expect to win their votes.

For all the upbeat chatter and optimism that I experienced in Brighton this week, the truth is that the Labour party has a mountain to climb if it is to form the next government. And we are – with potentially just weeks to go before a general election – still in the foothills.

This is, we are told throughout conference in Brighton, a new Labour: organised, united, filled with generous and effective policies — they have found dragon gold — repentant on anti-Semitism and ready to take the fight to the external, rather than the internal, enemy. None of this is true.

I read politics by detail, not spouted fantasies. At a small fringe meeting on the freighted subject of the abuse of women in public life – about 90% of attendees were female, of course, in this party of equality — delegates complained to Diane Abbott, one of the most abused women in public life, that they suffered misogynist abuse in their party.

How could they hope to change the world, one asked, if they could not change themselves? Abbott allowed that internal party misogyny was “wrong”, but said little else on it, before turning to external enemies, and their evils — as she does on radio, attacking Tories, refusing to see cruelty if it is close to her. Then she left, and the room sank with disappointment; nothing would be done about the “Brocialists”.

I have seen this before, when Luciana Berger told her testimony about the anti-Semitic abuse she has suffered in parliament. Diane Abbott could not look at her, as if the sisterly feelings do not extend as far as Berger; do not extend beyond political allies. I wonder if Abbott is inured to it, except when it happens to her. That would be excusable in any other woman but an aspiring Home Secretary.

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A far better attended event was “The Media War on Labour and How to Defeat It”, which throbbed with conspiracism. The best way to defeat it, of course, is to stop providing opportunity for them — Tony Blair managed to seduce the media to three election victories — but that would require self-reflection. So, they provide opportunity like a man punching himself in the face.

There was the attempted coup against the deputy leader Tom Watson. It was aborted, but “Shun Tom Watson” leaflets were still circulated, and a rally planned during his speech. Both the speech and the rally were later cancelled. Everything was thwarted.

The resignation of Andrew Fisher, Corbyn’s close aide, citing “a lack of professionalism, competence and human decency” at the top of the party was another opportunity for the media to write lies — I mean truth — about Labour.  “I no longer have faith we can succeed,” he said.  They blame the media for reporting on splits. They do not look to the cause — that they do, actually, split.

The insanity of the vote on the “Back Remain Now” motion, in which the chair appeared to change her mind about Conference’s wishes after the General Secretary muttered her wishes in her ear was more opportunity. If it was machination, it was appallingly done. Enemies would say: you cannot even manage to be effectively corrupt.

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And again, and always now, anti-Semitism. Labour is raging on the accusations, which prod its essential benevolence, the belief on which it depends; but not on the reality, about which they are completely in denial. The reality is that delegates to Labour in Brighton all passed, as they walked into Conference, a cartoon of a warplane decorated with a Star of David bombing Jeremy Corbyn on his podium.

You cannot govern without attention to detail. You cannot be moral without attention to detail either, whatever you tell yourself. The police removed it, after complaints from the Jewish community, but Corbyn, who lies to himself above all on these matters, claimed it was he who had it removed. He said so on his Twitter feed.

All week, internal saboteurs — real, not imagined — fizzed around the edges, their psychological imperatives disguised, and not well, as political aims. They are conspiracists; they need to believe themselves oppressed by some great enemy because it explains all their failures in life. The Labour Representation Committee (LRC) established themselves in the Rialto theatre and spouted the usual conspiracy theories about Zionism and Blairites and Momentum. John McDonnell is still their president; that aside, he says he has nothing to do with them.

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Labour was my party and I struggle, as I nod at their policies, and approve of them, to understand why I trust them so little under Corbyn. I think it is their monomania, their paranoia, their loathing of internal critics – a lack of compassion for the different – and sometimes, I wonder how much they actually respect parliamentary democracy: if you are certain you are right, you do not need it.

It would enrage them to hear it, but they are as responsible for brutal political language as anyone; they have been calling Tories murderers for years. If you agree with them, they are kindest people in the world. If you don’t, they hate you, and hatred does not play well on the doorsteps in Hove.

You can argue whether a Socialist project in a country which is also a constitutional monarchy where the Queen has a 72% approval rating (Corbyn’s is 21%) and Downton Abbey, a film about servants longing to serve is No.1 at the box office, will ever be tenable, or is mere dreaming. Sometimes I find it very touching dreaming. At the reinstate Clause 4 rally in a church hall where they pondered a different anomaly – why can’t we share? – I actually wept bourgeois tears.

But this remains a party in denial about itself, and how others view it. Corbyn’s speech was followed by a mass singing of the hymn Jerusalem. Considering Labour’s relationship with the Anglo-Jewish community, it did not feel like a call to arms to the desperate beyond the Labour Party who need a functioning opposition. It felt, rather, like something maiming itself.