‘More battered without but stronger within’? Pass the sick bag

There are times when there is no alternative but to throw up one’s hands in despair and just confess that one is not up to the job. A plumber, sent to investigate a problem with the drains, is doing his client a favour if he admits that he cannot identify the cause of the problem. Likewise a doctor who confesses that he cannot discover the ailment that troubles his patient. So too there are times when it is best for a political journalist to come clean and admit to his readers that he is completely out of his depth.

So it is with this Labour conference. It just doesn’t add up. There is something rum going on, though it is hard to say what. The conundrum is easy enough to state. Tony Blair arrived in Bournemouth after the most calamitous summer of his political career. He took his party into a war it hated, on premises that have since turned out to be false.