May can't match pop-star appeal of Labour's Corbyn

For once, it can be said without exaggeration that this is the most critical conference the Conservatives have held for decades.

Boris Johnson, former foreign secretary, can scarcely intensify the already savage language he has used about the prime minister’s Chequers proposals for Brexit, without actually challenging her leadership.

Johnson and his supporters claim they are attacking the policies and not the person. But they are not that naive as not to know that such unrestrained language - like “deranged” and “preposterous”- puts them at such odds with the prime minister herself that her authority is bound to be weakened.

May, to her credit, has remained firm, denouncing her critics for playing with politics to the detriment of the UK.

Johnson has gone so far with intemperate language that it is impossible for him to back off. But will he have the courage to unsheathe his dagger and go for the jugular? I doubt whether this will happen this week, but Johnson certainly means business.

Meanwhile, Britain’s Brexit negotiators have stepped up their criticism of the Brussels team. Brexit Secretary, Dominic Raab, has said there are limits to how much compromising the UK will accept, while Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt has warned the EU not to try to back the UK into a corner.

Things are certainly hotting up in Brussels. But will the temperature go off the boil at Birmingham at the last agonising minute?

• The big and unreachable electoral advantage Jeremy Corbyn possesses over the prime minister is that he has achieved a pop-star-like adulation.

The youthful enthusiasm for Corbyn, which so alarmed the Tories at last year’s unnecessary general election, has not waned at all. Young and old alike chanted, “Oooh! Jeremy Corbyn”, at regular intervals during last week’s Labour conference.

The Conservatives have good reason to be worried. They can produce the most attractive policies in the world and verbally destroy Labour’s policies, but none of that will defeat the pro-Corbyn hysteria.

Labour has successfully marshalled the youth vote - something no other party has bothered to do - and are reaping the dividends with Corbyn as their unlikely pin-up.

Whoever predicted that Corbynmania would ever happen at all, never mind becoming a source of such deep concern to the Tories?

I suspect they will be scouring their own ranks to find a suitable pin-up to counter this threat. But I fear they will search in vain.

• Have you ever heard of such tosh in your life? I refer to Tosh McDonald, chief of the Fire Brigades Union, who disclosed at the Labour Party conference last week that he used to set his alarm clock an hour earlier than he needed to, so he would have an extra hour each day to hate Margaret Thatcher.

Presumably McDonald is a highly intelligent man. So, why is he boasting about wasting his substance simply hating a fellow human being? Perhaps he knew it would go down well among conference delegates - which it did.

McDonald’s mane of blond hair which makes you think of Miss Piggy. His face, judging by the photograph I saw of him on the podium, looked unlike that of Miss Piggy, stern and unsmiling. Indeed, he resembled the epitome of the stereotype union leader: Someone with a permanent look of outrage on his face.

• Thank goodness for the Monster Raving Loony Party. While bad temper has abounded in the political world, the Loonies have been holding their own cheerful and wacky conference.

Their manifesto, when it comes out, certainly promises to be a more enjoyable read than any of the others. And they have remained faithful to their long-standing mantra: ‘Vote for Insanity - you know it makes sense.’