GORDON BROWN became the latest Labour heavyweight to damn Jeremy Corbyn yesterday – and he managed to do it without even mentioning his name.

Mr Corbyn’s opponents hope Mr Brown’s 11th hour intervention will halt the Corbyn bandwagon before it is too late.

If a Gordon Brown speech could prevent the break-up of the UK, surely the former Prime Minister can prevent Labour doing the same thing?

Everyone who heard Mr Brown’s speech yesterday agreed it was one of his best, but far from reviving the leadership race his intervention may just have been the final nail in the coffin for the other contenders.

The longer he spoke yesterday the more he cast a shadow over the other four Labour leadership candidates.

Mr Brown delivered his speech without notes and without a teleprompter. He commanded the stage, spoke with passion and sounded like a world statesman. Most important of all, when he appealed to his audience he sounded like he meant it.

Could any of the other leadership candidates have performed so well? Do any of them have the gravitas of Gordon Brown? Perhaps only one – and his name is Jeremy Corbyn.

Mr Corbyn strikes a chord with party members who are fed up with career politicians. They do not care if he can win the next election so long as he leads a party offering a genuine alternative. To them, the others look and sound too much like ‘Tory-lite’.

Mr Brown’s intervention has most probably come too late. Friends and enemies of Mr Corbyn believe his momentum is now too great to stop.

After all, the thousands of people who have joined Labour specifically to vote Corbyn are unlikely to be swayed by the man who lost five years ago.