A far-left warning

No one will be able to say, should the nightmare of a Jeremy Corbyn-led government ever become awful reality, that they weren’t warned. Yesterday, at the Labour Party Conference, a succession of senior figures took to the stage to offer a powerful reminder of the fantasy land that the extreme-left inhabits.

First up was Unite leader Len Mccluskey proclaiming, to cheers, his own defiance of reality regarding June’s election: “And let me say this to those merchants of doom, the whingers and the whiners, who say we should have done better, we didn’t win. I say we did win!” Then came the man who would be Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, John Mcdonnell, preaching his highspending, nationalising dogma. Given that he also promised that public debt would fall, the question was how this was all to be paid for? The answer, as ever, was to soak “the mega-rich”.

This simplistic, illogical message is obviously alluring – it is impossible to deny the energy and enthusiasm around Camp Corbyn at the moment. But all the more reason for the Conservatives to defend their own world-view – which is every bit as passionate as Labour’s about helping those who do not have enough, but insists that it is the market, entrepreneurialism and wealth creation, not the state, that is best equipped to do so. “We’re taking it back,” Mr Mcdonnell proclaimed, announcing each new proposed measure. Voters worried about their savings, their investments, and the Socialist state’s inexhaustible appetite for power should take him at his word.