Friends who are life-long Labour Party members returned from its Brighton conference in despondent mood.
They are ‘moderate’ members who despair that the hard left has now got almost total control over the party. Even so, I was rather taken aback by the depths of their despair. They described the conference as a “rabble”. The lunatics really have taken over the asylum, I was told.
I was surprised by the decision to give ordinary party members the lion’s share of the conference platform, with many shadow ministers banned from making traditional set-piece policy speeches.
Denying many frontbench spokesmen a platform, meant that on a number of fronts we were denied an insight into the direction of policy development – including transport.
Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell, had his moment in the spotlight and gleefully told us that a Labour government would take back control of the utilities and key services, including rail.
He didn’t mention buses. Was this simply an oversight; a reflection that in the overall scheme of things, the humble bus is not the first thing that comes to mind when the shadow Chancellor maps out his plans for renationalisation. That he simply forgot to mention that, yes, the bus industry would indeed be taken back under public sector control?
Or could it be that, pinch yourself, a Labour government would allow the bus policy status quo to stand?
But this was the shadow Chancellor speaking so you wouldn’t necessarily expect bus policy to be the first thing he thinks of relative to other sectors.
Yet a few years ago a former Conservative Chancellor felt so exercised about buses he felt the need to act and unleash franchising on the industry.
But bus operators didn’t get the ritual public flogging that I predicted last week, although I suspect that was more a reflection of the fact that the shadow transport spokesman, Andy McDonald, wasn’t given a platform to do so in the main conference hall. Debates on the conference fringe may have been a little different.
The issue that caught the media’s attention was John McDonnell’s admission in a Momentum fringe meeting that Labour was planning for what might happen if it wins the next general election. It’s planning for a run on the pound and for a flight of capital.
For the shadow Chancellor to recognise the need to plan for such eventualities is truly extraordinary. It made me wonder – does he mind or care if this comes about?
The fact that he and Jeremy Corbyn clearly expect this to happen, despite saying they don’t really, is chilling, whatever your political allegiance.
Worse still, does John McDonnell, an avowed Marxist, actually want this to happen?
