It was the merest hint of an olive branch. A chink in the denial. During a rather tetchy and uninspired speech at the annual conference of the manufacturing trade organisation, Make UK, Jeremy Corbyn did just about manage to squeeze out, by way of a passing aside, that he was disappointed a small number of MPs had decided to take a different path. Then it was back to the business at hand.

The Labour leader had arrived at the conference accessorised by his shadow education secretary, Angela Rayner, and the shadow junior education minister, Gordon Marsden. Neither of whom was asked to contribute a word and who appeared genuinely confused as to why they were being made to sit on the stage throughout the half-hour session. As was everyone else. Maybe it was a hostage situation. In case they were thinking of defecting to S Club 7.

His message was clear enough. The same as it ever was. Nothing had changed. The government had wrecked the economy but Labour would put things right by establishing a commission of lifelong learning. Theresa May had also made things worse with her handling of Brexit and, though all options remained – the possibility of a second referendum was forced out in a whisper – on the table, what the country really needed was a general election. Thank you and good night.

The smattering of applause suggested no one else in the room much fancied another election. At times like these, Corbyn is his own worst enemy. It helps to meet your audience halfway by acting as if you are engaged and interested, rather than just looking a bit bored and repeatedly shouting that you are right.

But that just isn’t the Labour leader’s style. When he thinks he right, there’s just no backing down. If history isn’t yet on his side then it will be at some point in the future. After all, a stopped clock is right twice a day. So when the inevitable questions about the S Club 7 – “Because there is truly no other party like an S Club party” – and the Etc Declaration came at the end, Corbyn was entirely unrepentant.

Regrets, he’d had a few. But then again, too few too mention. Did someone say that seven MPs had resigned from the Labour party? Well, it was no big deal. He’d never really cared for any of them. Who were they again? Oh yes, there was that Luciana woman who had been droning on about antisemitism for years. Thank God he’d never bothered to talk to her. And the rest were just a bunch of pro-EU Blairite losers. Good riddance to the lot of them.

And if there were any other Labour MPs out there who wanted to join them they were welcome to walk. Sod ‘em. They could all be replaced easily enough. Tom Watson and John McDonnell had asked him to reflect and listen and he’d done just that. He’d reflected and listened and decided that everything was pretty much tickety-boo. His policies were just fine, he was just fine. It wasn’t him that had to change, it was everyone else. Always had been, always would be. You didn’t get a caring Labour party by falling over yourself to be nice to people. Meet the new Jeremy. Same as the old Jeremy.

The Labour leader wasn’t the only politician to be in denial. At the beginning of his statement to the Commons on Honda’s decision to end production in Swindon, the business secretary, Greg Clark, had done his best to talk about anything but Brexit. Honda had said the closure was nothing to do with Brexit and who was he to contradict them?

Slowly, though, the scales of self-deceit began to fall away. Clark is at heart a decent man and can’t maintain the cognitive dissonance of talking stuff he knows to be bollocks for any length of time.

His breaking point came when Suella Braverman, one of the more intellectually challenged of the Tory backbenchers whose only positive contribution to the country has been to resign as a minister, declared it was a complete coincidence that so much economic bad news happened to be breaking while the government screwed up Brexit.

This was too much for Clark. He placed his hands over his ears, begging her to stop. What bit of a no-deal Brexit being a complete catastrophe did she not understand? Of course the uncertainty over Brexit was a factor in overseas businesses pulling out of the UK. It was a no-brainer. He had been on his knees begging Theresa May to face down the ERG and do something sensible in the national interest. But if nothing changed then S Club 7 might just become S Club 8.