These are seriously exciting times in British politics. I am of course referring to the furore within the opposition Labour Party and the mounting success of an unlikely contender for leadership, Jeremy Corbyn.
The Labour Party was sent reeling last May when their Conservative rivals again took power in a general election that saw them winning the support of over eleven million voters. Whilst not entirely unexpected, it unleashed something of a power struggle within Labour as the party attempted to take stock of what exactly had wrong.
In the resulting scramble for nominations to the recently vacated post of party leader, Corbyn rushed in for a last minute bid that saw him surge ahead in the polls, causing a veritable panic among his opponents inside and outside the party.
So what's all the noise about? At a glance Corbyn comes across as more of a social democrat than revolutionary firebrand. His policy platform, as much as has been revealed, stands upon a somewhat inoffensive endorsement of state ownership, anti-austerity politics and trade union support, alongside scrapping the UK's nuclear deterrent and questioning our continued membership in NATO.
But what's interesting here is that such rhetoric has prompted such considerable alarm within the establishment. The reason, it seems, is that the entire political edifice of British politics has shifted so far to the right that even the above can appear as dangerously radical.
Take the hysterical reaction of certain other contenders for Labour leadership. Liz Kendall, herself constituting the favoured 'Blairite' candidate (who is, incidentally, dead-last in the polls) hasn't been shy about hopping onto the bandwagon of right-wing opinion that believe Corbyn will 'take us back to the 1970s'. Whilst it remains unclear how the 66 year-old vegetarian may be capable of travelling through time, let alone dragging all sixty two million Britons with him, it does speak to their own agenda, that being a genuine fear of a return to the days of trade union clout, organisational freedom and political gusto.
Neil Kinnock, himself leader of the Labour party from 1983 to 1992 has subsequently weighed in, blasting Corbyn for allegedly being supported by 'malign Trots'. Corbyn's success in the polls, so the argument goes, is due to 'hard left' elements flocking to his banner, rather than any real base of support among Labour supporters.
Yet this seems to have more to do with Kinnock's own political past than possible infiltration by a few