Miss Havisham is walking up the aisle. Strange, but no more out of the blue than Red Jed’s victory in the Labour leadership contest.

On 12 September 2015 Jeremy Bernard Corbyn was elected leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition with nearly 60 per cent of first-preference votes – more than Tony Blair’s majority when he was elected party leader in 1994.

‘Jez We Can’, came the jubilant supporters’ chant, echoing Barack Obama’s slogan when he first campaigned for the US presidency in 2008.

Some hope.

History has turned him down a hundred times before. In frequent defeat – repeat, repeat – Corbyn was always dignified: no storming out of meeting rooms into what turns out to be the broom cupboard; nothing but quiet determination to maintain a principled position in defence of organised labour…….

……..in support of a workers’ movement that just isn’t there.

Even if he makes it to the altar, our bearded bride* is barren now; scarred by three long decades without issue.

Thirty years ago, miners dusted with coal and brushed into the pedal bin for human waste; 20 years ago, Irish Republicans canned into processed peace, then popping out as tinpot parliamentarians.

And so it came and went; all strength now spent.

Insides scraped clean and empty during the long march of Labour halted, the-leftist-lady-not-for-turning, is turning hollow victory into lifeless defeat.

*Corbyn was already the Fisherman back when hipsters were smooth as Kojak.