Corbyn was aglow with glee on stage

JEREMY Corbyn has lived in the public spotlight ever since he stunned the establishment and won the 2015 Labour leadership election.

It is impossible to predict how any individual will cope with the scrutiny this brings. Mr Corbyn faced the added pressure of a leadership challenge and a snap election.

And yesterday he strode on to the conference stage in Brighton brimming with glee and giving every impression that there is nothing he would rather be doing than leading Labour at this time.

His friends and supporters have long spoken of his confidence in his convictions. This is now matched with a public confidence.

For days, his legions of fans have sung his name in unison at every opportunity. The sense of celebration at the conference has been so intense that speakers have reminded the audience that they didn’t actually win the election.

But there is another victory that is a cause of delight for Mr Corbyn and his supporters. They have their firmest grip yet on the party.

He described Labour as a “modern, progressive socialist party that has rediscovered its roots and its purpose, bucking the trend across Europe”.

The sight of a leader routinely talking about “socialist” policies is a thrill for many on the left. Some may have doubted they would ever hear a leader pledge to return “our utilities into public ownership”.

Critics within Labour and other parties expected him to lead his comrades to electoral annihilation. Instead, the number of Labour MPs has increased and Theresa May has lost her majority.

The lesson Mr Corbyn appears to have taken from the election is that boldness is rewarded. He did not deliver a speech in which he tried to moderate his positions. Quite the opposite.

He claimed that “terrorism is thriving in a world, frankly, our governments have helped to shape, with its failed states, military interventions and occupations”. The country, he said, needed to avoid the “knee-jerk response of another bombing campaign”. He called for an end to “illegal settlement expansion” in the West Bank and levelled criticism at Donald Trump.

Mr Corbyn has been making similar statements on platforms for decades, but now he is the Leader of the Opposition in one of the world’s largest economies. Diplomats and international intelligence agencies will be filing reports, trying to make sense of what is happening in Britain and what it could mean for the world.

In the UK, people in all parties will be watching closely to see how the opinion polls respond to Mr Corbyn’s rhetoric and the spectacle of adulation that this conference constituted. Will increasing numbers of people add their voices to the cheers and sign up to deliver leaflets and tweet support at the next election – or are we witnessing the high-water mark of Corbynmania?

One thing is certain – he has shaken up British politics and reminded us of democracy’s power to surprise. The Western Mail newspaper is published by Media Wales a subsidiary company of Trinity Mirror PLC, which is a member of IPSO, the Independent Press Standards Organisation. The entire contents of The Western Mail are the copyright of Media Wales Ltd. It is an offence to copy any of its contents in any way without the company’s permission. If you require a licence to copy parts of it in any way or form, write to the Head of Finance at Six Park Street. The recycled paper content of UK newspapers in 2016 was 62.8%