YOU know something is happening when people like my mum and dad (78 and 80 respectively and no longer in their “young socialist” phase) sign up as Labour supporters so they can vote for Jeremy Corbyn. Mum had been a party member but drifted away and Dad had been active in his union, the GPMU. Living in Shropshire they had almost given up hope of hearing a Labour voice they could support.

This shows that Jeremy’s reach goes way further than the Westminster chattering class would have us believe. What is fascinating about this Labour leadership election is the way that the more publicity and the louder attacks on him the more people stop and listen to what he actually has to say and the more they like it.

Then, and this is the key thing, they are able to express that support through the ballot box. It is interesting also that over the last few years some of the Tories and New Labour’s democratic fixes have come back to bite them on the bum.

The Tories believed that giving the unions greater democracy and giving them back to their members would make them more moderate. Yet what actually happened was that they won every ballot for a political fund and then started to elect real left-wing leaders.

Described as the awkward squad, they began to change the terms of debate in the Labour Party. Now the reforms that Ed Miliband agreed to get the unions to give up their collective voice in the party have opened the doors in ways that are a nightmare for the Labour right.

The truth is that there has always been an appetite for the views that Corbyn expresses, but they have been squeezed out by electoral manipulation. Now they are out there and being clearly expressed, the true level of support for them can be seen.

I remember going to Tony Benn’s “shows” after he left Parliament to devote himself to politics, and seeing the huge crowds — people of all ages and class backgrounds who turned up and broadly agreed with him.

What most people on the broad left wonder, I think, is why Labour is so spineless. Why has it surrendered so much ground to the Tories without a fight?

For me this goes back to the Philip Gould effect within the Labour Party. Find out what the public want and give it to them. Reflect the public’s opinions back at them. Don’t try to shape or lead public opinion but follow it.

This is the complete abdication of any form of leadership. It also leaves that public opinion to be shaped by others. One thing that is interesting at Corbyn’s rallies is that often he asks how many people read a daily paper.  The response is often a very small number.

This means that among the young and the less affluent the right-wing press has less and less influence.

Of course this does not stop the BBC giving it undue prominence but it does mean that with social media this campaign is the first one for the Labour leadership that has truly exploited the power of the internet. This is what has enabled huge crowds to turn out for

Jeremy’s meetings at incredibly short notice and for his message to be heard unmediated by the mainstream media thought police.
Not everyone who hears Corbyn agrees with every word, but I do not think that anybody finds his views outlandish or in any way extreme. This is why the hysterical reaction of the Labour right is so laughable.

He is also remarkably unspun, completely authentic, kind, generous and lacking in ego. While he is asking you to vote for him, his message is: “Join me, come with me. We can change things if we do it together.” He is not just building a party — he is building a community.

The way some shadow cabinet members criticise Jeremy’s economic ideas just demonstrates their economic illiteracy and exposes how far they have swallowed the Tory big lie on the necessity of austerity.

One thing is certain: the genie is out of the bottle. Now we have to build the biggest possible vote for Jeremy over the coming days and weeks. And when he is elected we need to build that support as broad and wide as possible.

The Tories have a tiny majority. We need to build the campaign into next year’s mayoral election in London and the local elections across the country. And before those elections we need to do what Barack Obama did and actually build the electorate with registration drives.

The Tories where elected by around a quarter of the electorate: people who voted against human rights and for the bedroom tax. To win a general election we do not need any of their votes — we need the votes of the other three quarters.

These are the people who need a message of hope. All across Europe people are asking for the same thing. We are not alone. At last there is an alternative.