Shhhh! Listen!

Did you hear that?

That high-pitched keening sound? And there, there! That feverish scratching and scraping?

That dear readers is the sound of legion lazy, pompous hacks frantically mining the bottom of the world’s biggest barrel in their desperately doomed attempts to find anything at all to attack Corbyn with.

For some of them it’s the first time they’ve got off their self-important posteriors in a quarter of a century and now they’re actually being asked to earn their filthy lucre and actually do some of their own dirty work for a change.

And what’s worse is that most of them can’t even make dubious expenses claims for their three-course lunchtimes and meagre gallon of chateau neuf de pape.

Oh the humanity!

And lo and behold it would appear that some of these superannuated egomaniacs are a bit rusty — or gouty.

A significant proportion of them probably don’t even know what a computer is, let alone how to turn one on.

It’s not like the old days when you could phone your copy in from a bar stool in Soho — well it probably is at the Torygraph but then they think a fax machine is some form of arcane witchcraft, which can only lead to no good.

The other thing that seems to be causing them considerable confusion is the fact that Corbyn isn’t quaking in his boots and scurrying to hide from the vituperative barbs of their forked tongues.

You can’t have a decent witch-hunt if the intended victim just ignores you. Or even worse actually addresses the issues you are speciously trying to accuse them of ignoring.

It’s just not cricket!

All the traditional fail-safes have been deployed and, er, failed.

Brand him a mere beardy, Marxist troublemaker and economically illiterate. Check.

Imply he has terrorist sympathies and is a threat to national security. Check.

Rummage through his past in search of dirt. Check.

And, one they haven’t wheeled out since the ’70s — find some insane, reactionary old bigot of a general who calls for a military coup.

Still there was always the party conference where no doubt more knives would be out than at a Julius Caesar-themed toga party.

Except of course they weren’t.

Corbyn gave a bravura speech, which was easily the best given by a Labour leader in this column’s memory.

Oh how the howls must have reverberated around newsrooms the length and breadth of the country when they realised this was not going to be a call for bloody revolution and heads on pikes but rather a measured, eloquent, humorous and intelligence response to the vital issues of the day.

Logic and consistency being foreign concepts in Grub Street the only option remaining to them was to do a spectacular U-turn en masse and accuse him of not being left-wing ENOUGH.

And then, to make matters worse, he received the overwhelming backing of the party including some of his opponents in the leadership race.

OK some of the more blinkered and bitter Blairites packed up their beach balls and towels and buggered off home early but so what? They merely showed themselves for what they really are — petty political opportunists.

The latest wheeze of course is the manufactured “outrage” after Corbyn said he would not push the nuclear button if elected PM. If you’re reduced to attacking someone for NOT wanting to trigger the apocalypse you really should engage in a bit of introspection.

Of course Corbyn has not been the only target, John McDonnell has come in for more than his fair share of abuse. To the point where he was lambasted by the Tory press for apologising for comments he made regarding Irish republicans decades ago.

Hmm, condemned for apologising, that’s a new one.

Not something that’s going to be a problem for Cameron.

Yes while the fourth estate was giving itself seizures over the opposition, our bold premier has been globe-hopping again.

Where to, I hear you ask? Syria, Ukraine, Iraq, some other benighted corner of the world suffering the excesses of imperialist intervention?

No, Jamaica.

While there the intrepid Tory was urged once and for all to apologise for Britain’s nefarious role in the slave trade, and spectacularly refused to do so.

Instead he told Jamaica that it had all been a very long time ago and that they should “move on.”

Yes, well so were the titles handed to your pals and cronies but you still cling to them like grim death.

Incidentally, the purpose of his visit? To urge Jamaica to buy a new British-constructed prison so that Jamaican nationals incarcerated in Britain could be deported.

So basically when human lives were treated as mere commodities we were kidnapping and dragging them over here in shackles every chance we got.

Now one or two of them are seen as a bit of a nuisance we’re trying to ship them BACK in chains.

We have indeed moved on. Just not much.