At the recent annual general meeting of the RMT, the rail union, the question of affiliation to the Labour Party was discussed, after being rejected last year. At a packed conference fringe meeting John McDonnell, the shadow Labour chancellor, made a personal appeal for the union to “come home” to Labour.

Nigh on ten years from the initial announcement of the building of two aircraft carriers, the first behemoth, HMS Queen Elizabeth, inched towards the sea under the Forth Bridge on its way to its first sea trials.