In truth, it was neither outrageous nor courageous. His admirers are hailing it as a steely act of ruthlessness by a brave leader.

Her fellow travellers on the hard left are foaming that the sacking is a shocking disgrace. The signal was sent by the dismissal from the shadow cabinet of Rebecca Long-Bailey, the Corbynite standard bearer in the leadership contest, after she promoted a view that Mr Starmer held to be antisemitic. We now have a clear indication that Mr Starmer wants unity, but on his terms. This is the unity to be forged by purging all that was rotten and repulsive to voters about the discredited Corbynite regime, setting a fresh direction for Labour, rallying the party behind the new course and marginalising those who are unwilling or incapable of getting aboard. To do that, a less false kind of unity is required. This isn’t durable as a long-term leadership strategy and it won’t convince the country that Labour is changing under new management. “But unity around what?” The worry about Mr Starmer was that he might opt for a fudgy, phoney version of unity that sought to please every faction, including the hard leftists who brought Labour into such awful disrepute with the public.

During Keir Starmer’s campaign for the Labour leadership, one of the party’s most senior figures said to me that it was all very well to promise unity.

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