The series of shadow cabinet meetings that ended with Labour MPs being granted a free vote on Syria today began on July 20, 1970. And following the thread from that meeting to this one leads me to two unexpected conclusions. George Galloway is right. And Jeremy Corbyn hasn’t been left wing enough.

Soon after Labour’s unexpected election defeat in 1970, Tony Benn intervened in the shadow cabinet to ask the leader, Harold Wilson, what would now happen about collective responsibility. Would frontbenchers be expected, he asked, to behave the same way in opposition as they had in government? Would he be asked to support all their decisions and agree a common point of view on everything?

Wilson’s answer was inconclusive, so Benn made it clear: