Corbyn’s foes need to start boxing clever

THE Labour Party’s responsible faction must stop making useless gestures. Again and again, their futile, costly frontal attacks on Jeremy Corbyn are driven back with heavy losses, leaving Mr Corbyn looking smug.

Now the anti-Corbynites are nerving themselves for another attempt. They should think first. Doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result, is foolish and self-indulgent. It will not lead to the rebirth of a responsible Opposition.

Such an Opposition keeps the Government honest, and stands ready to offer a competent and credible alternative if and when that Government loses its mandate. Right now, we do not have such an Opposition. And we need one badly in the storms ahead.

If Labour’s moderate heavyweights really have the guts to break cover – and there is little evidence of this – they need to use Corbynite methods against Mr Corbyn, by enthusing ordinary voters to flock into the party and battle for a movement which can rejoin proper politics.

If they want an example of leadership, they need only look across the House of Commons to see how Theresa May has united a divided party by showing both steel and the ability to listen.

Abusing the system

HEROIN abuse is a subject surrounded by horror and myth, frequently exaggerated and increasingly viewed by medical opinion – and the courts – as a sickness rather than wrongdoing.

What is not in doubt is that this drug often does grave damage to those who take it, and that some of them pay for their habit through vicious, selfish crime, in some cases against friends and family.

There are now thought to be more than 200,000 such abusers in Britain.

Any serious attempt to reduce and control this problem must therefore be considered thoughtfully and responsibly. We do not doubt that Durham Chief Constable Mike Barton is well intentioned when he sets out his plan to supply the drug to long-term abusers at taxpayers’ expense.

Something similar has been attempted over many years with the Governmentbacked methadone programme, in which a substitute drug is used, supposedly to wean users off heroin.

And here is the problem. Such weaning is not very effective. It costs UK taxpayers an estimated £300million a year to provide methadone, but very few who take it, perhaps 5 per cent, abandon their habit. They might have done so anyway. Some actually sell methadone to buy heroin.

Law-abiding, hard-working citizens whose taxes are used to pay for heroin may feel they have been mugged by the taxman to pay for someone else’s bad behaviour. To justify this, Mr Barton’s case would need to be stronger than it is.

But the biggest objection to the plan is that it is sponsored by a police force. Their job is to uphold the law. They cannot actively help people to do something that would be illegal in other circumstances. It is a step too far.

End secret hearings

THE NHS expects us to accept whatever doctor it provides. So we must be sure we can trust that doctor. The General Medical Council’s system of secret hearings for misconduct makes that impossible. These tribunals must be opened up now.