Ronnie and Reggie Kray - The Kray Twins

To begin, I must make it crystal clear that I do not in any way support, enjoy or worship violent crime. Violence is horrific, hideous, heinous and in no way do I defend it. In fact I condemn it roundly and wholeheartedly.

Ronnie and Reggie Kray were violent criminals, Ronnie in particular. Ronnie was the slightly older, more dominant twin and it was Ronnie who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. Reggie was extremely loyal to Ronnie and could not ever turn his back on him. The sadness is that had Reggie turned his back on his twin, he might just have avoided a jail sentence of a minimum of 30 years, as laid down by Mr Justice Melford Stevenson. 'Society deserves a rest from your activities.' he pronounced. Off the twins went to prison to serve their thirty years minimum, both in the end,having spent just over half their lives in prison. Ronnie died in Broadmoor Hospital in 1995, after a heart attack. He was 61 years old. He smoked incessantly and the cigarettes eventually got the better of him. Reggie didn't actually die in prison. In August 2000, Reggie was terminally ill with cancer. Finally Jack Straw, the then Home Secretary in the Blair government, did the right thing and released Reggie on compassionate grounds. Reggie lived for just a few weeks after his release. He died several days before his 67th birthday.

The story of the Kray twins is an undoubtedly sad one but it is also a compelling one. Born in 1933 in the East End of London to Charlie and Violet Kray, they had a very happy childhood, by their own admission. They were much loved by Violet and they were devoted to her in their turn. In Reggie's final interview he speaks of his mother as, 'a warm, very giving person who would never run anybody down.'

What is so remarkable about Reggie and Ronnie Kray is that they were born poor, very poor and yet succeeded in becoming very rich and very famous. Notorious criminals as they were, there was no stopping famous people who were attracted to them and their clubs. Judy Garland was a regular in their clubs, some said she was in loved with Reggie, who was undoubtedly the epitome of cool with good looks to match. He had a six pack before people even spoke of six packs. They had clubs in the West End, Esmerelda's Barn and the Hideout, also in the West End. Reggie was a good business man  - level headed, calculating and determined. Had he not been goaded by Ronnie, he may not have murdered Jack the Hat McVitie in 1967. Ronnie had already committed murder by walking into The   Blind Beggar pub, in East London, which was slap bang in the middle of the Kray's 'Manor'  - as they referred to their area.

Something else which led Reggie to murder was that the previous year, Frances Shea killed herself. Her name was actually Frances Kray but she was born Shea, and married Reggie at the age of 21. Reggie first met her when she was just 16 years old - a beautiful girl with a charming personality but also of a fragile mental state. It seems clear that Frances did love Reggie, at least initially, but then realisation of what her husband was involved in and the torments of Ronnie, now her brother in law led her to suicide. It is well documented that Reggie loved her very much and that when she committed suicide he was grief-stricken. He drank and took large quantities of Valium in an attempt to numb his feelings. Of course, there is no excuse for murder but had he not been out of his head on drugs and alcohol and Ronnie hadn't encouraged him, Reggie may not have murdered Jack the Hat and would have received a considerably shorter sentence for extortion and protection rackets.

The twins had an older brother Charlie, six years older than them, often referred to as Champagne Charlie, an affable. popular man, who nevertheless became involved in crime himself. He was the one who introduced the twins to boxing. It was commonplace for the East End to produce boxers, often street fighting men who honed their skills in the ring. There were plenty of fights between Ronnie and Reggie as they were growing up and these fights, plus their telepathic communication, often seen in the case of twins, made the twins into fighting machines. They fought as one and yet there were two of them. Other East End hard men were unable to beat them, even when, as in the case of the South London Richardson gang, the twins were considerably outnumbered. No one could beat the 4 legged, 4 armed fighter.

Some people may not know about the twins' generosity. They always gave money to the families of the 'aways' - those men from The Firm, who were serving prison sentences. They also gave to charities, most generously, and although they did like to be photographed donating money, it is fair to say that the majority of people, whatever they may claim, are keen for people to know that they have indeed given to charity and are therefore good people. Even in prison they could get their donations to those who deserved them.

Their funerals were grand affairs. Six plumed black horses, the East End at a standstill and mouners 6 deep watching the procession as FRank Sinatra sang My Way. Reggie, in flowers, had the words, The Other Half of Me written on the side of his funeral carriage. Five years later, on Reggie's coffin were the words - Respect - Free At Last.

In 1997, a 38 year old English graduate, by chance, visited Reggie Kray in Maidstone prison. She was filling in for someone else, as part of a team interested in making a documentary about the Krays.  Roberta Jones says that she didn't fall in love with Reggie at first sight. It took longer than that. In 1997 she married him. He was 63 years old. She nursed him through his last weeks and in her book Reg Kray - A Man Apart, she succeeds in showing the man behind the gangster legend - certainly not a monster but not an angel either.

Some thought that with the deaths of all the Kray brothers, people would lose interest in them. That doesn't seem to be happening. Tom Hardy's portrayal of both Reggie and Ronnie in the film Legend, released last September, has fuelled further interest. More books, more films will be released and for good or ill, it seems interest in the Krays will go on and on.

Sisters

Mary, Gertrude and Jean were born in 1923, 1926 and 1929 respectively. Mary and Gertrude are now 92 and 89. They are sisters - Mary is my mother and Gertrude is my aunt. Sadly, Jean died in 1986 of liver cancer. Jean married George at the age of 21. They loved each other deeply and never felt the need for children, fearing that their close bond would be diluted by the interference of children. As a child myself, visiting my aunt and uncle, Jean and George, I was intrigued by the way they smelt. It wasn’t unpleasant but it was a smell that I had never before experienced before. Later I learnt that it was beer or booze as they called it. After about a quarter of an hour of our Sunday afternoon visits, Jean and George would go for a ‘lie-down’, something which I understood to be just that. They were going to lie down as they were tired. Jean and George would hold hands on the settee, they would smile at each other in a crowded room and kiss – properly, while making ‘mmmmmm’ noises. This was most odd to me. My mum and dad sat as far away from each other as possible.

 Living with Jean and George at that time, were my granddad and my other aunt, Gertrude. By this time though, Gertrude had changed her name. She hated both her first names, or Christian names as she would have called them, and as was the custom – Gertrude Ada.  So she became Pat. Not Patricia, not Trisha – just Pat. Still now when I see letters addressed to her - Miss Gertrude Casson, it surprises me that she was once called Gertrude, after her mother.

My Mum, the oldest of the sisters and the only one to have any children, told me that when Auntie Pat was 26,  she had 3 proposals in a fortnight. As a 13 year old, just starting to read Jackie magazine, filling my head with nonsense, as my father would say, I thought this state of affairs to be impossibly romantic. There was no doubt about it - Pat was glamorous. She had innate warmth and beauty and was tall and slim. Hairpieces, makeup, all beautifully laid out and arranged were what made my visits to my grandparents in Tinsley bearable. In the tiny 2 up 2 down council house, my auntie Pat epitomised glamour.

‘Look at this, Ruth,’ my aunt would say. ‘Deep burnished copper,’ she would say, pointing to a glossy, swingy wig laid over a pot head. My aunt would try them on and I would be so excited that I would clap.

Her glass tray held her makeup. Lipsticks standing straight as soldiers, ready to do their work, compacts of powder, such as you don’t see much today and a small black box containing block mascara. To get this to work you had to spit onto the block, move the brush up and down, in order to gather the moistened mascara onto the brush, then transfer the mascara from the brush to the eyelashes, using the brush to spread an even coating over the lashes. My aunt was so skilful at this innately awkward task and when she looked away from the mirror her eyes looked so dramatic, especially as she had covered her eyelids with a grey shimmering shadow.

My overwhelming thought was why wasn’t this sensational, film star style woman married? In later life my aunt told me that she had had enough love from her mum and dad to last her a lifetime and she had no interest in the love of a man. My youthful stupidity had me believe that every woman wanted marriage and children – which is no more true now, than it was then.

Mary, my mum, is a gentle soul. Yesterday at the age of 92 she said she didn’t like using a stick; it was bad enough being old without advertising the fact. She had 56 years with my dad, a man of great energy and a fiery temper. His temper probably stems from his experience as a Prisoner of War for three and a half years during World War Two. My aunt, his sister, told me that before he went to war, he was an ‘easy going chap,’ which I found fascinating – my dad! Easy going? Blimey! When he died my mum was devastated and could not bear to live on her own in the house they shared for 55 years. The nights were particularly difficult for her so for a while my brother and shuttled her between our houses. To be frank I was irritated at having to do this. She lived in a very safe area, had good neighbours, was in good health and yet she couldn’t stay there. In retrospect, I think I was a bit harsh, but I had a fulltime job and three children at home and I just wished that I didn’t have to deal with my mother every morning as well as myself and my children. Despite all this, I should have been more sympathetic.

It struck me one afternoon on an impromptu visit to my mum, when I found her howling with grief, that one of life’s cruellest blows was separating two people who had been together for so long, leaving the remaining partner bereft. The final nine weeks proved my mother to have enviable determination and courage. My dad was in hospital for nine weeks - my mum visited him afternoon and evening for all of the nine weeks.

Auntie Pat, shortly after my dad’s death, told me that local people were knocking on her outside walls at approximately three o’clock in the morning. Also, she continued, they were turning her bin over. Despite this claim, her bins were always upright when she got up in the morning. As she told me this, she appeared to be her usual rational self. On Halloween 2002, Auntie Pat’s imaginings, because surely that is what they were, were verging on the hysterical. She was terrified of young people knocking on her door, trick or treating. I had no choice but to go and fetch her and that night she stayed with my mum, who stayed in her own house at night for the first time for several months. Odd really – I presumed my mother’s reluctance to stay on her own overnight was because she feared intruders. But what use did she think Auntie Pat would be against a determined assailant? Auntie Pat was seventy-seven years old.

They have lived together ever since. As a rule, they manage reasonably well, but about three years ago, Auntie Pat became increasingly forgetful. A year ago she received a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s Disease. Naturally she is confused and tells me that she has to hurry because she has to get to work. She tells me too that she is either going or has just returned from holiday. My mum gets cross and says she hasn’t been on holiday. I try to convince mum that it doesn’t matter, but she worries that people will think she’s lying. They won’t of course, but for my mum, lying is tantamount to devilry.

They are set in their ways, they like to get out most days, though my aunt is less keen these days. They bicker, in the way only siblings do. They eat rubbish: cakes, biscuits, sweets and chocolate are the main stay of their diet. One lunchtime I called in and looked at my mum’s plate – two sausage rolls and three small pieces of cake. ‘Are you on a health kick, mum?’ Her reply was, ‘No, not really,’ as if the faint possibility might exist that she was eating healthily.

In her later years my aunt became quite mean with her money. She wasn’t badly off but her purse clips remained firmly shut. Now, I have power of attorney over her money and her Attendance Allowance is paid to me. I tell her about the money and ask her what she would like me to buy for her. She looks at me, smiles and says that she’d like a perm. Old habits die hard. She goes for a perm and for a few days afterwards, she refrains from smearing hand cream in her hair.

Inevitably, at their ages, I can’t help but wonder what the future holds. Whatever that is, I will do my best for them.

A Night in Accident and Emergency

On Sundays, I teach for 3.5 hours. The students come to me for all levels of tuition. The Sunday just gone, 18th October, I was feeling unwell. Nothing specific: just a general lethargy, bit of a headache, feeling a little nauseous.

As I have done on numerous occasions during my career, I managed to get through the work and was very relieved indeed when I could just slump in front of the TV. An early night, I was sure, would sort me out.

The following day, Monday, I felt dreadful. I hoped I would feel better as the day wore on. I didn't. I felt worse.And worse. Finally at 10.30 pm I had no choice but to go to A+E. I believed I knew what the problem was. I have Addison's Disease - the condition named after Doctor Addison who discovered it.

So, what is it? Until I was diagnosed with it ten years ago, I had no idea at all about it. That is not in any way surprising, as it is very rare. Addison's Disease is a failure of the adrenal glands, which are at the top of each kidney, to produce sufficient adrenaline and other hormones. It is a gradual thing. You feel unwell, you feel sick, you lose your appetite and have great difficulty in performing the slightest physical movement without feeling out of breath and exhausted. The doctor told me I had a virus initially and then on several more occasions. This was some virus! This 'virus' made me barely able to go upstairs  - I had to take each step very slowly, arriving at the top, puffing and panting and needing to sit down to recover. This was no virus.

After being rushed into hospital, I was finally diagnosed with Addison's Disease. A drip of pure adrenaline was attached and within hours, all was well again. I learnt I was in good company. It is believed that Jane Austen died of Addison's and that President John F Kennedy had it too, and thanks to him,  there is a cure today.

So, in the hospital I knew what was needed. Most of the time, Addison's is stable, but there are the occasional blips and this was one of them.

For a Monday night A+E was packed. There was shouting, swearing, drunkenness, people with mental health problems and many with physical problems. It was a long wait, but at two o'clock in the morning, I was dealt with. The doctors were junior doctors, but very skilled and energetic. They were pleasant and respectful - really respectful, throughout.

There were people coming into A+E at an alarming rate. One man came in after having had a crash on his motorbike. He had been placed in a neck and back brace but wasn't happy at all wearing them. He was sitting up on the trolley he'd been placed on. He had been expressly forbidden to do so. He was also attempting to remove the two braces he had been placed in for his own safety, to prevent the possibility of paralysis. With superhuman patience the nurse kept telling the patient to lie down. The nurse would then readjust the helmet and brace. A number of times this happened. The nurse spoke firmly, but did not raise his voice at all, or shout - suit yourself mate! as I probably would have done.

So much work, so many people to deal with, real skill and intelligence in evidence, none of the staff complaining.

Our NHS - and I use the word 'our' advisedly, is far too precious to allow the Tories to dismantle. I am, and have always been, so massively impressed by the NHS. It is our country's pride and joy and the people who work in it on the front line are a special breed of exceptional human beings.

Grammar Schools or Comprehensives? Some Thoughts

  

Nicky Morgan, Conservative Education Minister and possible leadership contender for when Cameron releases himself from the job of Prime Minister, has granted permission for a grammar school to go ahead in Sevenoaks Kent. The place is significant. Note that there is not a plan to introduce a new grammar school in Sunderland, Middlesborough or Barnsley.

My instinct is to say no to grammar schools and a resounding yes to comprehensive schools. It feels wrong to decide the educational future of children aged 11. On the other hand, we hear stories about the child who went to secondary school and did so well that he/she was transferred to a grammar or who stayed at the secondary and got a whole host of excellent GCSEs. That these individuals are worth a story perhaps suggests that there are so few, in reality, who make the cut.

Granted then, there may be the odd one who succeeds after failing the 11+ but they are few. Some, identified as bright, and offered a transfer simply do not want to go. They have their friends, very important to secondary age children, and most likely will be in the top set at their current school, and are perfecty happy. Why transfer to the unknown?

Those who argue in favour of the 11+ say that it doesn’t really matter so much about those who fail because if a child is bright, no matter where he/she is, that intelligence will shine through. Having been a teacher for 25+years, I am sorry to say, that that view is a complete misconception. Many children, even those with a supportive home life, good nutrition, plenty of money for revision aids, a quiet space in which to do homework and  revise for exams, with an excellent brain, do not succeed despite all that is laid on for them. Maybe when they are no longer of school age, they will realize that they have wasted their chances and will become a mature student. That might be the case for some, but not so for others. A sad fact of life is that some people do not reach their academic potential. I have learnt that the guy driving a truck or the woman doing a job in a care home, may well have a higher raw intelligence than the university professor or the writer of a column in The Times. Let’s not worry too much about them though, as they may well be happier that way.

Grammar schools are undeniably elitist institutions. If you go to a grammar school you are in the top 15%. Wouldn’t it be better then to keep all the bright students together in this way, each one encouraged and challenged by the others? Surely, that way, no one would want to add students with low intelligence, as they would be out of their depth.  The bright ones would be slowed down, then become frustrated and lose motivation. This happens too in the fashionably and politically correct mixed ability teaching. A mixed ability class is also one of the most difficult tasks a teacher can face.  The preparation is relentless and, in fact, a teacher finds him or herself wishing that they were several people and not just one.

Then again, if you stream students, are you not just imitating the grammar/secondary system, except for the fact that the students are all in one building as opposed to separate ones? Students are not fooled though. They know they are in set 5 out of 6, no matter if you call it The Robins, Daffodils or Group 6.

My difficulty with condemning grammar schools is that I actually went to an all girls grammar school and benefited from that experience. At the time, aged 11, I felt such pride that I had passed the 11+, that I hardly spared a thought for those who didn’t pass, I will blame my callousness on my age. Now, decades older, I see clearly that it was a terrible thing to do to children, to separate them at this age and to humiliate a child who failed. It WAS humiliation too.

Whatever the future holds, and I really hope it doesn’t hold grammar schools, the best kind of education a young person can have is a teacher who cares, who is concerned about their future and who can deliver inspirational teaching so that students will WANT to do well. In the end, the ones who succeed are those who want to and will put the work in to get there.

That said, I still do not think it is a good idea to segregate children so young. In some cases that humiliation, or as some say, being thrown on the scrap heap at 11 years old, may well be too hard to recover from.

Kidults

Kidults are those people who refuse to grow up. They say things like, ‘Having a baby won’t change my life, absolutely no way.’  They say that all you need is a babysitter, it won’t cost much and yes you might be knackered the next day but you just get through it, by hair of the dog.

I want to ask them one question. Are you mad? This attitude to having babies and the certainty some kidults hold up about their existence not changing is frankly stupid. Of course you can get a babysitter, all day and all night, if you like.  In fact, why stop there? Have an almost childfree life, if you so choose. But the truth is that these people do not take into account the anxiety and emotional impact of a baby on one’s life.  That said, some do claim that their lives haven’t changed at all since baby was born. I just do not believe them.

There’s a song –The Oldest Swinger in Town –which is the story of a man in the process of realising that his age separates him from younger people. I imagine this man in a nightclub, leaning at a bar, a pint and a whisky chaser, eyeing up young girls who, when they notice he is ogling them, give a grimace of disgust and mutter, ‘pervert’, to each other. He might wear a shirt, opened too far, maybe there’ll be some gold around his neck, and maybe he has little self-awareness. These girls don’t want you, or any Peter Stringfellow lookalike, they want young, fit men of roughly their own age. It doesn’t prove so attractive either, even if you are rich.

There’s another type of kidult too – those who encourage others to be ‘zany’ (awful word) to do crazy things like when they were in university. Steal traffic cones and put them on your head, pick daffodils from people’s gardens, sing loudly in the street at 3 am, even on a weekday when non-kidults have to go to work and are trying to get some sleep to deal with what will come at them the next day. As Tim in The Office says, ‘It’s other people’s zaniness I can’t stand. I speculate that what Tim means here, and what so precisely chimes with my own view, is that zany acts feel phony, false and forced. It’s not real spontaneous fun. It’s planned, it’s stereotypical and in the main, it’s not funny.

I do realize that maybe some people would accuse me of not wanting to have fun and of being too serious. They could not be further from the truth. A genuine laugh is priceless. A sharp witty comment that makes all laugh heartily is one of the world’s treasures. But there is a time for seriousness and getting stuff done. Keep yourselves to yourselves kidults, you’re not kidding me, but you may well be kidding yourselves.

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt - An Excellent Book

I have just finished reading The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. It has a massive 864 pages and is one of the longest books I’ve read apart from Dickens’ novels. Even several of Dickens’ novels don’t have as many as 800+ pages.

Maybe Donna Tartt went on a little too long. Because she doesn’t write many novels, maybe she thinks that when she does write, she should produce many pages. No matter, she writes brilliantly. It isn’t just me saying so - Donna Tartt won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2013 for The Goldfinch.  

The beginning of this book is heartbreaking and describes the profound loss and grief that a child feels on losing a parent. The boy in this book loses his mother in an explosion in an art gallery in New York. There is no good age to lose a parent but it seems to me that 12 is one of the worst ages. At age 12, a child is just coming up to adolescence, a difficult and confusing time. The adult world is on the cusp of opening up. To have someone who has loved you, and has known you since birth, is every child’s birthright. To have that person no longer with you must be very difficult to deal with. I very much hope that the love given before the death, can be drawn upon. Maybe that is just a fantasy.

When he was 16, my son had a girlfriend of the same age. The girl’s mum had died of epilepsy, when the girl was 9 years old. Her brother was 12 at the time. They barely spoke of their mum. I don’t think they had the words. I think about them even now, 8 years later, and not only do I feel compassion for the brother and sister, I also feel so sad for the mother who died and had to leave her children – thereby missing out on their lives, not being there to share the joys and difficulties life throws at us all.

The boy, Theo, in The Goldfinch, goes to stay with his friend’s family, but it is no substitute at all for the life he lived with his mum.   And the story continues. It is beautifully written. The characterization is superb, the descriptions evocative and the emotions so credibly conveyed.

After the explosion, the boy goes back to his apartment, certain that his mum will be there waiting for him. As he waits for her, he talks of how, when he was younger, his ‘greatest fear was that some day my mother might not come home from work.’ This is a fear that I can very well relate to. I had exactly the same fear. I can remember watching for my mum out of the window and dreading the light fading and it going dark. I believed that some disaster might befall her out there in the dark, without me to look after her. That comment might appear ridiculous, as I was 8 years old and would be pretty useless against a determined assailant. But that is how I felt and I can still feel that anxiety now, the strength of it, the choking sense of something having happened to my mum because I wasn’t by her side. Decades on from worrying about my mum, who is now 92 years old, I can still feel that sense of dread but now it is directed at those who are motherless and to the dead mothers who missed out on their children’s lives. That is a particularly cruel tragedy. So it’s no wonder then, that when my youngest child reached 21, I did a dance of joy and relief. 

Jeremy Corbyn and Company.

So much has been said about Jeremy Corbyn. Ever since he gained enough support to be placed on the Labour leadership ballot, it's not easy to think of anything new or original to add. Nevertheless, I am undeterred and will say something anyway.

My dad, born in 1918, was a staunch Labour man. It was because of him, initially, that I voted Labour. My dad was not perfect, but his loyalty to Labour and his belief in justice for all, redeemed him. So it was my dad who got me interested in politics. University deepened that interest. That said, I was friends with a girl who seemed to me to be very politically aware and very left wing. We attended the International Marxist Group meetings, the Socialist Worker Party meetings and the Militant Labour Party meetings. When I asked her who we were going to affiliate ourselves to, she said the IMG of course. I nodded sagely, as if I too thought this was the best option but did dare to ask why she thought so, exactly. 'It's obvious!' she said. Looking at her, puzzled, I asked why that was. 'Because the best looking men are in that group of course!' Just a different kind of politics then, I suppose.

There is no denying Jeremy Corbyn's resounding victory over Yvette Cooper, Andy Burnham and Liz Kendall. Of the three, I preferred Liz Kendall, despite her Blairite credentials. She was at least honest and consistent. The other two, I have no time for at all. Yvette Cooper barely said anything other than vague comments about 'rebuilding' and 'coming together' - not a word about how, and very little policy revelation. She would look at Corbyn, head to one side, a look of condescension and irritation on her face like a headmistress of a primary school, listening to the excuses of one of her most trying pupils.  Her finest hour was encouraging the government to take in more refugees, and the cynic in me cries out that she did that in order to enhance her own popularity, thereby increasing votes for her.

Andy Burnham became confused and forgot what he stood for. Witnessing the hourly increase of votes going Corbyn's way, Andy panicked and spoke of renationalising the railways, 'line by line' and leaned dramatically to the left in the hope that some Corbynistas might suddenly prefer him. It was not to be. They all three bleated that Corbyn was unelectable. But, hang on. The other three have been in opposition for some time, so why pick on Jeremy Corbyn as being unelectable, when the other three do not have much to shout about?

So, as expected, Jeremy Corbyn won, with almost 60% to the vote. Young people, people who had left Labour because of Iraq and people who had never had an interest in politics previously, all turned out to vote. At Corbyn's rallies people flooded in,  venues packed full to bursting. something was happening, something was changing and so the right wing Tory press started to stick the boot in. And how. The claims flew in.  Corbyn was best friends with Jerry Adams. Corbyn was in love with Osama Bin Laden. Corbyn was friends with every conceivable enemy of Britain, including Isis. He wants the queen out of Buckingham Palace and living in a tent. then he will guillotine the rest of the royal family, even the children.

Jeremy Corbyn is a calm, measured, kindly man, who cares greatly about inequality in Britain. He cares about the vulnerable, the disabled, the ground down and those exploited at work.He wants to tax the rich to help the poor. He wants to redistribute wealth, he wants rid of nuclear bombs and he doesn't want to start wars in the Middle East. He is a conviction politician, with a desire for the those who didn't receive a full hand of life cards, to be better cared for.

It is not respectful to sneer, call him a dinosaur, persistently refer to him as left wing, when we don't refer to Cameron as right wing or any of the casual insults thrown out to land at his door. It is a shame that those who attempt the hatchet job on decent, reasonable people pay little heed to how it may well come back and bite them.

What a fuss about someone not singing theNational Anthem! Corbyn has already said he may well sing it on some occasions. He is not a royalist. He is a republican. At the ceremony this week to commemorate those in the wars who gave their lives, Jeremy Corbyn was thinking about his mother and father,who played their part. Corbyn is a patriot. He loves this country.

As the old cliche goes, a week is a long time in politics. Five years is a very long time in politics. Anything could happen. Screams of, 'He's unelectable!' may well quieten down as the new leader takes charge. Some he will surprise, some he will annoy, some he will thrill, some he will make enormously grateful, because he has helped them in a way no other politician has.

Let's give him a chance. Lets see what he does, what policies he develops and if he can change the yah boo politics of The House of Commons. The Tories may be riding high at the moment but if a week is a long time in polities then that applies to the Tories as much as it does Labour. We'll see.