WHEN the odds on an outsider in a four-horse race plummet from 100-1 to 8-1, something noteworthy is happening.

Either someone with pots of money is playing silly beggars or growing numbers of people are finding out something new about the outsider and like what they see.

Given that there have been no reports of silly money bets being placed on Jeremy Corbyn winning the campaign to be Labour Party leader, his shortened odds clearly reflect mass involvement in the contest.

Of course, 8-1 does not make Corbyn favourite, but it shows significant movement before the election next month.

His patient explanation of why the government’s “austerity” agenda — in reality, a deliberate strategy of transferring wealth and power from the poor to the rich — and Labour’s austerity-lite response offer no solution to working-class concerns makes sense to people hearing this for the first time.

So stifling has what passes for political debate become that his suggestion that there is another way has been a breath of fresh air.

Unlike in the House of Commons, where marginal political differences are played out to a backdrop of childish personal attacks and incoherent noise, Corbyn makes his case positively without demeaning his opponents.

This makes him a very dangerous competitor to the New Labourite current that still holds sway in the Parliamentary Labour Party.

After patronising him as a nice man who speaks for a tiny left-wing group, the other camps have now resorted to type by putting the boot into him.

Arch-Blairite Liz Kendall, who lost contact with the rest of the field at the first fence, claims that Corbyn would lead Labour to “oblivion.”

Tristram Hunt, who saddled up but retired while still in the stalls, warns the party against wrapping itself in a left “comfort blanket.”

And Yvette Cooper cautions the membership against becoming “a narrow party of the left.”

Labour’s main problem in office and in opposition has been as a narrow party of the right, backing imperialist wars, accepting the Tory “choice” agenda for public services, seeking plaudits from big business rather than working people and turning its back on public ownership.

This approach saw Labour governments under Tony Blair lose votes in every poll after 1997 and taste defeat in the last two general elections.

Yet still the right-wing candidates, reinforced by leader Harriet Harman and shadow chancellor Chris Leslie, cling to the regressive comfort blanket of the austerity-lite programme.

Harman insists that this means accepting George Osborne’s overall household benefits cap and restrictions on tax credits and universal credits that will penalise low-paid working families.

Corbyn was invited as a keynote speaker to the Durham Miners’ Gala because he presents an alternative to the “we won’t get elected unless we sound more like the Tories” approach.

All of a sudden, three candidates who distanced themselves from the old-fashioned trade union movement but suddenly found out how many people attend the gala looked for an invitation to address the Big Meeting.

They were given short shrift and rightly so. The gala doesn’t exist to polish the egos of dodgy Labour would-be leaders.

While pondering their rejection, they might ask themselves why working people should vote for candidates who declare that prioritising working class concerns over big business and rich people means electoral oblivion.

Corbyn’s clear, principled comments to the Big Meeting confirm why he is the best candidate and why his victory could enthuse millions of people who have stopped voting Labour.