Co-operative

The problem with the Co-op Bank was precisely that it was not a mutual, but merely happened to be owned by one.

The Left has missed a trick here. We could have had it for a song.

We must not make the same mistake again.

We ought to be have been in on the Academies programme from the start, bypassing the municipal Labour Right in order to cut our own deals.

The same is true of the reorganisation that is undoubtedly now coming to housing in general and to social housing in particular.

And all sorts of changes are coming to the ownership of broadcasting, from Rupert Murdoch's acquisition of the whole of Sky, to the plans of the Conservative-DUP Coalition for the BBC and for Channel 4.

We are no more here to cover the backs of the metropolitan Liberal Establishment than we are here to cover the backs of the municipal Labour Right. What has either of them ever done for us?

Jeremy Corbyn is the political and cultural phenomenon of the age. We have no need of those who have kept us off everything for 100 years.

We can just bypass them and deal directly with anyone we like, or at the very least need.

We can, and we should.