THE late Tony Benn MP divided people into weather vanes and signposts. Signposts are guides, showing the way, firm under pressure. Weather vanes shift direction in response to prevailing winds.

Local Labour Party members should remember this as they consider re-election and potential de-selection of councillors. Warren Morgan and some other politicians do seem at odds with the current direction of their party.

However, if Corbyn’s people pursue de-selections, they need to be sure that the politicians they get will be better than the politicians they had. An atmosphere of cult-like adoration currently surrounds Jeremy Corbyn, as it once did Tony Blair. With most of the mainstream, pro-remain media in full cry after Theresa May, Corbyn is getting a remarkably easy ride. To many, he looks a shoo-in for the next general election. As a result, every careerist and attention seeker from Oxbridge to Wapping, and Sheffield to Kemptown now tacks left, just as they or their kind once tacked right. Once selected, and when the political climate changes, as it will, they’ll shift direction as it suits them.

In the 1990s, Blairite apparatchiks wore suits, defended global capitalism, courted “the filthy rich” insulted women and sneered at working class people. Nowadays, Corbynistas dress casually, argue for nationalisation and “the many not the few” while singing “Oh Jeremy Corbyn”. And still, it seems, insult women and sneer at working class people. I do not agree with Warren Morgan, but he is, I suspect, a signpost rather than a weather vane. A political bruiser and front-stabber, at least people know where they are with him.