TONY BLAIR accuses Jeremy Corbyn of “Alice in Wonderland politics” that will lead Labour “over a cliff.” This latest intervention in the leadership contest would seem to indicate growing panic on Labour’s right wing.

Yet of the four candidates only Corbyn offers anything like a comprehensive programme for the recovery of the British economy and a secure future for coming generations.

Consider the problems. The first is an investment strike by those who hold the wealth. Since the financial crisis Britain has seen minimal reinvestment in the real economy. Productivity has shrunk by 20 per cent relative to competitors. The balance of trade deficit has reached a historic high — almost six per cent of national output. The Bank of England has pumped out plenty of new money. But our City of London speculators have used it to create asset bubbles in property, commodities and overseas “growth markets.”

The second big problem is poverty, in the broadest sense. It is not just that Britain has seen a relative reduction in wage incomes comparable only to countries like Greece and Spain. It is the impoverishment of the whole social infrastructure: health, education, social care, transport. And, most important of all, is the assault on the collective bargaining power of workers through direct attacks on trade union rights and the enforcement of new employment structures that are robbing more and more people of any form of work security.

What does Corbyn propose? Renationalising the RBS to act as an investment bank for the real economy, using it to direct new money into investment in transport, health, education, housing and scientific and industrial research and development and creating a million skilled jobs. He proposes taking railways and energy back into public ownership and ending a level of mismanagement that already endangers the wider economy.

And, as a necessary complement, he demands an end to tax evasion, ending wasteful expenditure on Trident and Nato-required defence targets, taxing wealth and restoring bargaining rights to workers.

In other words, “shifting the balance of wealth and power in favour of working people,” to use the terms of a previous Labour Party programme that brought electoral success against an equally vengeful Conservative government in 1974.

Compared to Corbyn, what does Blair’s “realistic” Liz Kendall have to offer? It’s being “passionate” about wealth creation, not opposing the Tory Welfare Reform Bill, keeping Trident and spending the Nato-demanded 2 per cent of GDP on defence. This is hardly an economic programme. It’s barely concealed semaphore to Blair’s friends in the press and high finance: Carry on speculating — you’re safe with us.

Economically Corbyn is the realist. This is why he has captured the enthusiasm of a whole new generation who can understand the problems of Britain’s economy because they feel the consequences every day.

Only in one area is there a lack of fit. It’s on the EU. Here Corbyn’s team needs to think further.

They are rightly against TTIP. But within the EU there can be no escape from TTIP. And TTIP’s enforcement of big business interests over and above democratic process exactly mirrors the legal code of the EU. State aid and competition rules would preclude 90 per cent of the Corbyn economic recovery programme.

Corbyn is clear he wants a “better Europe.” But a Europe free of austerity, which does not grind small nations into poverty and enables economic democracy at national level, must be one created by the peoples of Europe taking on the rich and powerful in their own countries.

This would not suit Tony Blair or ex-EU Commissioner Peter Mandelson — both of whom have emerged momentarily from the darkness to spoil the bank holiday weekend. But it would complete an electorally winning programme for Labour and all those who want an economically and socially viable future.