I was in London during the last years of the Greater London Council, a popular and hugely effective local authority. Mrs Thatcher abolished the GLC notwithstanding huge public opposition (from more than 70 per cent of Londoners according to some polls). She did that because the council was under Labour control. Proper Labour control. The leader was Ken Livingstone and the deputy leader was a very young John McDonnell. McDonnell managed the GLC's colossal budget, never running a deficit, and never overspending.

Small diversion: Why Corbyn need not be unduly concerned about hostility from the dead-tree press. The newspaper circulations from which ten per cent was shed in the last year are typically around half of what they were a few years ago. And the trend will accelerate as plummeting readership hits advertising rates.