Jeremy Corbyn’s opponents are finally starting to show political nous

Chuka Umunna’s call for Labourites to unite around their new leader and show ‘solidarity’ does show a growing acceptance that Jeremy Corbyn is on the brink of being installed as the party’s new chief in just ten days’ time. But it also shows that the Blairites in the party are finally starting to come up with a plan for dealing with the rise of the hard left.

Labour’s centrist modernisers have spent the summer scratching their heads at the Corbyn phenomenon, which they hadn’t predicted at all – indeed, I was initially briefed by one of their number that ‘we will get hundreds of thousands of new supporters. Social media has changed how we communicate in a way we can’t grasp and it has blown open this leadership contest too.’ My source was right that there would be hundreds of thousands of new supporters and that social media would have a big impact on the leadership election.