Will a bubbly Len now cause strike misery?

After his narrowerthan-expected victory in the Unite leadership contest, red Len McCluskey, in true Socialist tradition, celebrated with £51-abottle champagne.

McCluskey was spotted drinking in the Boot & flogger pub by London Bridge, best known for customers drinking bubbly from tankards.

With McCluskey was Seumas Milne, who is Comrade Corbyn’s sinister right- hand man and communications chief, who dreamed up a short-lived plan for this election to dub the tories the ‘real extremists’ (the plan was dropped because it would inevitably have drawn attention to Corbyn’s extremist crony chums).

But the victory of McCluskey will bring little cheer to the rest of us.

Unite, with 1.3 million members, has amassed an astonishing £ 36 million strike fund. the money means the union can pay striking workers a minimum £35 a day, with an ability to double that rate.

Incredibly, only 12 per cent of Unite members bothered to vote in the leadership ballot, calling into question their general secretary’s legitimacy.

But that won’t stop him trying to engineer a series of damaging stoppages if the tories win the General election. After strikes by rail unions, commuters on Southern railway already know only too well what that feels like.