Old Labour, Indeed

Of course the Young Labour Conference has been cancelled. The only people left in the Labour Party have been in it so long that they are determined to die in it. Or with it. Whichever happened first.

They are going to have to pretend that Covid-19 restrictions were the reason why there was almost no one at Keir Starmer's speech, but the truth is that only that few people were ever going to turn up to hear a tailor's dummy call for the resumption of austerity at home and of the war in Afghanistan, complete with an aspiration merely to halve child poverty by means unspecified, and featuring a thrilling rallying cry for Universal Credit to be renamed. That's right. Renamed.

It has always been obvious that Jeremy Corbyn was going to be the star speaker at The World Transformed. While he lives, then who else is that ever going to be? In this and all subsequent years, The World Transformed is going to be bigger than the Labour Party Conference. Like the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, it has become the point.

If Corbyn were not on the bill either at next year's Tolpuddle Festival or at next year's Durham Miners' Gala, then there would have to be events that weekend in Tolpuddle or in Durham at which he was indeed the main attraction. Now that I say that, then it, too, is obvious. So obvious, in fact, that it is no doubt already being pursued.