If anything, John McDonnell, Labour’s shadow chancellor, was controlling himself, restraining his more extreme instincts. He didn’t actually call for the nationalisation of all of the economy, or the introduction of compulsory wage equality, or 90pc tax rates; instead, he tried his best to sound moderate. It didn’t work. His programme is ruinous, backward-looking and economically illiterate. 

True, the Confederation of British Industry managed to put out a mealy-mouthed, painfully laboured press release which wasn’t entirely hostile. But the bottom line remains that a Labour government led by the re-elected Jeremy Corbyn, McDonnell and their hard-left allies would be a disaster for the economy and for business.

He wants to massively increase public spending, dramatically increase government intervention, introduce a Seventies-style industrial strategy with real teeth, decide what parts of the economy are legitimate and which need to be shut down, hike the minimum wage further and faster, and tax wealth. 

It would be a recipe for calamity, a financial and social catastrophe, a negative productivity shock of the like we haven’t seen since – yes, you’ve guessed right – the Seventies. Those companies still reeling from the Brexit vote need to realise that it is Corbyn’s Labour, not our imminent departure from the EU, that is the real enemy.

David Fuller's view

It is disconcerting, to put it mildly, that the world’s fifth largest economy, and the seventh most efficient according to the World Economic Forum (WEF) (see below), is one bad election result away from being in the hands of a neo-Marxist government.

A government led by Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell, with the help of Nicola Sturgeon, would be far to the left of anything this country suffered in the hands of Ed Miliband, Gordon Brown and might have endured in the 1970s if the shambolic Michael Foot had been elected. As a point of reference for non-UK readers, these people make the Clintons look right-wing.   

Corbyn has more often been a figure of fun in the UK, regarded as having no chance in the next general election, and rightly so we hope.  However, the Conservative Party needs to be reasonably united in carrying out the country’s vote to leave the EU.  The surest way to bring Corbyn’s hard-left to power would be to divide and weaken the current government.

Here is a PDF of Allister Heath's article.