A fair comment from Jeremy Corbyn. The Tories will be on trial next week and if they show the same self-indulgence of recent weeks the reluctant conclusion will be that they deserve what they get. Except the British people don’t deserve the consequences of a Labour Government.

The stunning achievement of Theresa May’s General Election campaign was to make Corbyn electable. In his radical and at times effective closing conference speech today, Corbyn presented a wish list of reforms including an array of spending pledges from re-nationalisation, to lifting public sector pay caps across the board; from wiping out student debt to cancelling PFI’s regardless of its impact on the national debt. He breezily swatted away the biggest issue of the day, Brexit, on which Labour are almost as divided as the Tories and left unaddressed the concerns of his Shadow Chancellor of a possible run on the pound. He stood there almost certainly supporting the Stalinist practices of Momentum and the likes of Len McCluskey (re-elected Unite’s General Secretary on only a 5% share of the membership’s vote) as they tighten their grip on the grassroots. However, the Labour Party, despite their hatreds, including barely disguised anti-Semitism, are speaking well and a weakened Conservative Party currently leaves them almost uncontested.

Deep down Labour remain a deeply unpleasant lot with a front bench almost totally unfit to assume responsibility for a larger State. And yet… and yet…today Corbyn in particular made some highly legitimate points. The Conservative Party often appears uncaring, talking about austerity in balance sheet terms rather than understanding the day to day impact on the poorest. The rich are embraced with enthusiasm whilst social liberalism is only reluctantly embraced by the grass roots. The politicisation of the Grenfell Tower fire is a disgrace, but it starkly showed the warped priorities of a Tory local government and exposed wider concerns about the direction society is heading. However unfair, Corbyn’s comments about disregard for rampant inequality, the hollowing out of public services and disdain for the powerless resonate. On foreign policy, a more moral approach and standing up to Trump’s America will also be widely supported.

The consequences of many Labour policies will to be damage the prospects of the very people they seek to help, creating a weaker economy and a larger State run by incompetent politicians. To head this off, the Tories need to stop obsessing about Brexit, find a new language to speak to broader sections of the electorate including the young, and introduce policies demonstrating their moral compass of caring for the more vulnerable in society, fronted by the most able up-and-coming MPs. They are on notice next week. Their actions will be unforgiveable if, by Wednesday, a Corbyn Government becomes more likely.

Well done Angela Merkel but not well done enough. In sticking to her almost suffocating position as the ultimate German safe pair of hands she has unleashed the Fringe Right with the AfD taking some 90 seats in the Bundestag.

Yet her policy on immigration was anything but safe. Letting a million asylum seekers into Germany in a short period of time, mostly from the Middle East, exhausted the goodwill of some Germans who voted for the AfD in frustration. She has unleashed the worst sort of xenophobic sentiments in voters which is so detrimental to the longer term health of democracy and the functioning of society as a whole.

Remind you of anything? UKIP at their peak in the 2015 General Election scored a similar 12.6% of the vote mostly based on a fear of immigration. Only the first past the post system saved us from hordes of UKIP MPs. But the end result was essentially the same. The EU, heavily influenced by Merkel, blocked the UK’s bid for any meaningful compromise on the free movement of people which ultimately led to Brexit. Now she has her comeuppance.

However much we dislike the reasons that the electorate votes for certain things, in a democracy politicians must listen and head off issues before they breed extremism. The EU was deaf, Merkel was deaf, the UK is out of the EU and Germany now has its own hordes of politicians focused on racial and religious division. There are so many lessons to be learnt in Europe and that is before we turn to the United States and Trump…

First, the pantomime from Boris. A 4200 word ‘please notice me’ advertisement in The Telegraph shamefully putting personal ambition before the interests of the Government and the Country. Then on Friday came a serious, concrete proposal by the Prime Minister in her speech in Florence ensuring no impact on the EU’s current budget from our departure. This would mean no country having to fill our contribution space in the interim period.

As the phrase goes, ‘it is not the beginning of the end but the end of the beginning’ and finally gets us to the starting line of exiting the EU in a grown up way. A two year transition period (at least) post departure is sensible as the economy slows and uncertainties for businesses mount. It marks the end of the nonsense that ‘no deal is better than a bad deal’.

Those who advocate a clean break from the EU with little or no payment simply don’t get it. No one can forecast the full, long term impact of leaving Europe or indeed the benefits of doing so but the near future is damaged. We are now one of the slowest growing economies in Europe with further pressures to follow. We have a fantastic employment record (all whilst being a member of the EU) but this could reverse. We need an agreement first on money so that we can reach agreements on cross border regulation, in particular to protect our Financial Services industry, on enshrining the rights of European citizens under the European Court of Justice in UK law (a neat compromise) to keep talented European individuals in the UK and on a decent trade deal to protect our overall economy. That is before securing terms for an open border with Northern Ireland and new structures for mutual cooperation on research and security issues.

Some Brexit Cabinet Ministers have been heard to muse in private that we are better off outside the EU and poorer than being inside the EU and accepting its constraints. Try telling that to thousands of employees in the Financial Services sector alone who will lose their administration jobs as back offices are re-located to continental Europe. Leaving the EU is a serious game with the futures of many people reliant on getting the exit terms right. Theresa May’s speech was a step (finally) in the right direction. It is a time for compromise not ideology, a phased departure not a cliff-edge.

Which takes us to the imminent Conservative Party Conference. As we all suspected, this Sunday’s papers underscore what poisonous relationships exist within the current Cabinet. It is too much to expect many members not to be on manoeuvres during their happy stay in Manchester. One hopes they will be suitably punished in any future leadership contest.

As we approach the Conservative Party Conference, when anybody attending under 50 can be considered young, it is worth contemplating the complete alienation of this age group of voters from the Conservatives. A recent YouGov poll shows that only voters aged over 50 support the Conservatives over Labour, with younger age groups preferring Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party by a huge margin; 18-24 year olds, 65% versus 19% and 25-49 year olds, 55% versus 27%.

The reasons are almost too numerous to list; Brexit, tuition fees, 10 years of austerity seemingly bearing little fruit, a housing crisis, economic policies overall favouring the old over the young, to name but a few. Other polling suggests real pessimism about standards of living continuing to improve for the next generation, something once taken for granted.

Then there is the image of the Conservative Party…Whilst it is actually populated with some impressive young people (but clearly not enough), and of course good people of all ages, it is perceived to be influenced by a nostalgic longing for the 1950s combined with flashes of cavalier arrogance which grate on many sections of the electorate. To add insult to injury you now have Jacob Rees-Mogg touted as a future leader either based on delusion or a deliberate plan by opponents to sabotage the Conservative Party for a generation. It is not hard to see why the ‘affable, idealistic’ Corbyn (even with his many hard-line activists) is charging ahead.

So what is to be done? First, there should be no pale imitation of Labour’s policies in appealing to younger voters. A government paralysed by Brexit can still be radical. On tuition fees, there should be an immediate cut in the penal rate of interest of up to 6.1%, preferably close to the base rate, combined with a full scale review of the funding of higher education. This is particularly needed after the unedifying rush to charge the maximum £9k tuition fees regardless of the need or quality of teaching. The possibility of two year courses should also be examined as well as charging overseas students more and domestic students less. On Brexit, the language and priorities need to change and new, younger ministers should lead some of the reporting on the progress of negotiations. On housing, pro-actively working with banks to cut the deposit required for purchase, which many younger people say is currently prohibitive to getting on the housing ladder, would bring real benefits. Last but not least, on the economy, reducing the higher rate tax relief on pension contributions and means testing some benefits to older voters (an original manifesto promise…) would help make the case for austerity but with a little more re-distribution. Now this is the stuff of dreams but worth a thought anyway…

The challenges for younger voters should be seen as our challenges too. Only in this way will the Conservative Party broaden its base of support and prevent the awful prospect of Corbyn as Prime Minister.

So Theresa May wants to fight the next election as leader. She would say that wouldn’t she; but her desire to get the job done and atone for past mistakes should not be underestimated. She is hardly challenged at Cabinet level (sorry Boris) and it would allow time for a new leader to emerge from the next generation. But the real threat to her position comes not from grumbling colleagues but Labour’s new stance on Europe.

The Government to date has been blessed with its Opposition, despite the disastrous General Election result. A slow footed, divided Labour Party has allowed the Conservative Party to avoid most of the pitfalls of its own internal divisions. A poor Labour front bench, led by a leader who can’t make up his mind on the key issue of the day, leaving Europe, has also allowed a hard Brexit approach to remain relatively unchallenged. The real opposition often seems to be led by Michel Barnier, who again out-manoeuvred David Davis this week from a public relations perspective.

Not for much longer. The change of stance of the Labour Party, driven by one of its few able shadow ministers, Keir Starmer, to supporting a much softer Brexit has enormous consequences. In flatly opposing the Conservatives’ desire to leave the single market/customs union during a transition period, beyond it and possibly never if freedom of movement rules are loosened, Labour have now created more space for potentially major parliamentary defeats. Many Labour seats voted to leave the EU so there may be some negative consequences for them but on the whole this has been a long overdue master stroke.

The Conservatives also seem to be softening their own position. A ‘status quo’ transition, paying exit bills, a limited role for the European Court of Justice are just a few compromises appearing. As long as the hard Brexiteers get their exit and the EU has a transition period where we abide by their rules (but have no say!) perhaps all will be harmony. But if not, there will be real trouble. If the Government loses its majority through a combination of Labour’s new stance and pro-European Conservatives simply having had enough then it will be game over. Theresa May would have to go and with a new leader pressurised to call an election who knows what the consequences will be. There will be many close battles ahead and 2019 looks a long way off let alone 2022.