HOPE

In case anyone is in any doubt, Jeremy Corbyn is now officially the leader of the labour party.

I have never been a member of this august body since, when asked where my political affiliations lay, I have always replied, "somewhere to the left of Lenin".

For me the previous incumbents of the labour leadership have never quite convinced me of their desire to actively improve the day-to-day lives of their fellow citizens.

And, of course, in the case of one particular such person, have led their country nose first, into war.

Any member of the party who had a vote and failed to use it has, in my view, no right to complain if they now have a leader whose aims do not match their own.

Perhaps I am just feeling unreasonably euphoric because England have once more trounced Australia in the cricket field, but no, there is, rising somewhere in my ancient frame, a slightly nervous glimmer of hope that this time there may be a real chance for the left of the political sphere to justify its opinions.

I am neither an astute politician, nor a total imbecile, merely an old woman seeing a light at the end of a very long, very dark tunnel.