GETTY If Owen Smith does not topple Jeremy Corbyn in the in-party election, Labour faces a dark night

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There is an old saying that both our main parties are “a broad church”. A platitude but a true one. The Tories and Labour have Left and Right wings with a centre between them. Despite this they stay together rather than split into warring factions and make moderate government impossible. That is why this country’s most admired qualities abroad are its stability and moderation. It concerns us all that neither be taken over by an aggressive extreme. Back in the early 1980s, under the hapless and helpless Michael Foot, that was what almost happened to Labour. A surge of penetration from the hard-Left Militant Tendency took over the levers of the party’s structure, ousting moderates in the unions and constituencies. Two things followed. The four moderates Roy Jenkins, David Owen, Shirley Williams and Richard Rodgers split away to form the SDLP and Labour lost four elections in a row: 1979, 1983, 1987 and 1992. It took years of struggle to flush the Trotskyist wreckers out of the ranks and restore the party to loyal but moderate Labour voters. Then John Smith took over, succeeded by the now disgraced Tony Blair.

Again the ultra-Left takeover is happening. The Militant Tendency is back in control but now termed Momentum – rage-filled, fanatical and vicious, bent on de-selection and destruction of anyone who does not agree with them. Moderates who have served the party or voted for it for years are fleeing in disgust and not a little fear. Donors (apart from the Red-dominated unions) are vanishing, passing even more power to the Ultras. The reason of course was that damn-fool decree from Ed Miliband, even as he departed, to open the floodgates with his £3-a-leadership-vote offer. Actually it concerns us all. As a parliamentary democracy we need a moderate, responsible and viable opposition. What we now have is a feuding shambles. This country has never been without a nasty ultra-Right or a Marxist-Leninist extreme Left. Our much-admired skill has been in keeping them both well-distanced from actual power via high office. Which means out of our main two parties. If Owen Smith does not topple Jeremy Corbyn in the forthcoming in-party election, Labour faces a long, dark night. As a country we face major problems for the next decade. Columns of marching, screaming, placard-waving fanatics who have been nowhere, seen nothing and experienced nothing are not the answer. _____________________________________

GETTY I seem to have spent much of my life watching these whiskery protesters chanting away

Lessons on fracking and high-speed rail Whenever something new and probably even more expensive is proposed there are two very useful questions worth asking: has it ever been tried by anyone elsewhere and did it work? Let’s have a glance at two ideas now obsessing the nation’s interest: the super-fast HS2 rail line, now postulated at a staggering £65billion (without rolling stock) and fracking for deep-buried shale gas reserves. The answer to the first question is: yes. The Dutch built a super-fast rail line parallel to the existing service from Amsterdam to Breda. It was a lot cheaper than ours because Holland is flat as a pancake. No tunnels, embankments, cuttings, no mountains to bore through or valleys to bridge. And it has been a commercial disaster. To be viable the tickets are expensive – but no one wants them. Drop the price and the track becomes a loss-maker which the government has to bail out. Which is exactly what has happened. The Americans went ahead with fracking and the cheap, US-produced energy source, with many decades of reserves, has transformed the economy. Dying manufacturing industries have been saved, made competitive by cheap local energy. Others, once out-sourced (sent abroad) for cost reasons, have been re-imported, creating jobs and wealth. There are initial hazards but with ever-advancing technology they have been overcome and we could inherit the American discoveries free of charge. So why are our Luddites still wailing away, doing all they can with protest marches to stultify our prosperity? I seem to have spent much of my life watching these whiskery protesters chanting away behind their banners and 90 per cent of the time they have turned out to be wrong. _____________________________________

179 British soldiers who died during the Iraq War Wed, July 6, 2016 179 UK servicemen and women died during the campaign that followed the invasion of Iraq on 20 March 2003. Play slideshow PA 1 of 167 UK military deaths in Iraq

Good riddance to the law firm that went after our Iraq heroes It is rare that this old codger’s heart does a cartwheel of joy and even more unusual if it is because something large and heavy has fallen on someone’s head. But just a cardiac feat was achieved to learn that nemesis has finally come to the firm of lawyers known as PIL. This was the company that spent years hounding our soldiers who fought in Iraq. Up to 1,000 were targeted with claims of brutality made up by Iraqis. Now the sky has fallen in for PIL. It has gone out of business and closed its doors for ever. At last the message has got through that we taxpayers do not wish our money to be spent persecuting our soldiers and subsidising people such as PIL boss Phil Shiner. The Al Sweady inquiry into just some of these allegations found them to be a tissue of lies made up by the Iraqis out of malice. Now there is evidence that paid touts were sent to Iraq to find locals to be bribed to utter allegations. The Legal Aid Agency has closed down the money supply after £3million of payouts, the National Crime Agency is investigating the alleged lies. Finally the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal may strike this law firm off the register. All the while Marine Sgt Al Blackman still languishes in jail for a crime in combat in Afghanistan that he never committed. The Criminal Cases Review Commission in Birmingham still loiters over the case a full eight months after receiving the devastating evidence that rips apart the “impartiality” of his court martial three years ago. There is not a single fellow member of Nato that would dream for a minute of treating its veterans like this. What is the matter with us British and our establishment? _____________________________________

GETTY A group of elderly tourists were ambushed by the Taliban in Afghanistan

Taking adventure a little bit too far I will admit to enjoying a bit of activity on holiday. Lying on a sun lounger becomes deeply boring after a day. But there have to be limits. So what on earth did a group of elderly tourists think they were doing getting themselves ambushed by the Taliban in the middle of Afghanistan? Six of the eight ended up in hospital. It happens I have been to Kabul and that was before the civil war started. Even then it was crazy to venture into the wilderness. Today great swathes of the country are back under the control of the warlords, opium-growers and Taliban terrorists and none of them like our pink little faces. _____________________________________

Brexit whiners are doing nation down At last! Ever since Brexit eight weeks ago various spokespersons for filmic, artistic, farming and research facilities have been wailing that their EU-sourced subsidies would cease. This page has pointed out that we British could replicate every subsidy coming in from Brussels and have a wad of change left over once we cease to shovel billions over to the EU in membership fees. Now the Government has said that this is exactly what we will do. Could the whiners please cease and stop running our country down with these scare stories? _____________________________________

GETTY The Cabinet Office secretly granted Nick Clegg expenses of up to £115,000 to cover his costs

The Taxpayers’ Alliance is not a body that springs to mind at every breakfast table but it does great investigative work on our behalf. A recent discovery is that last year the Cabinet Office secretly granted Nick Clegg expenses of up to £115,000 to cover his costs after leaving office. But this is the sum for ex-prime ministers, which the Clegglet never was. He was deputy PM and this considerable sum has never been granted to a deputy PM before. So why? And why no explanation? Time for a group of backbench MPs to justify their existence? _____________________________________ It seems that horse owners have started to apply facial make-up to their steeds whenever they are entered for a “show” competition. The poor beasts are presented with heavy mascara eye-shadow to make them seem more attractive. Grooming – yes, but maquillage? I fear if I approached my Jack Russells with a tube of lipstick there might be a most unfortunate incident. _____________________________________

MARCUS DAWES • REX • SHUTTERSTOCK Gabriella (Ella) Windsor, daughter of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent