IT’S a truth that needs to be faced. The North-East, perhaps in company with South Wales, is the last bastion of True Labour, usually called Old Labour. Whether ‘New Labour’ deserves the name ‘Labour’ at all is a separate matter.

The contest for the Labour leadership has brought the issue into sharp focus. It has its farcical side. Thirty five MPs nominated left-wing candidate Jeremy Corbyn. But he had barely had time to thank them before around half the group disowned him.

Among them was Margaret Beckett. “At no point did I intend to vote for Jeremy nor advise anyone else to do so,” she admitted. This woman was once Foreign Secretary. But, as we all know, talking one way and acting another is how they do things in high places.

Mr Corbyn’s candidacy brought joy elsewhere. Making a link with the British Open golf championship, a cartoon in The Daily Telegraph perfectly caught the Tory perspective – the perspective of the governing party, let it be stressed. Stuck in a bunker, with his nearby golf bag proclaiming his Labour sponsorship, Corbyn was being urged on to successive failed shots by a delighted David Cameron.

Of course there are critics closer to home - and more vitriolic. Tony Blair has argued that anyone who votes for Corbyn “from the heart” – i.e. because they want a True Labour leader – needs a heart transplant.

“We won elections when we had an agenda that was driven by values but informed by modernity,” declared Mr Blair. Ah yes, “modernity”, a strangely dated word. For Mr Blair it means that “2015 is not 2007 or 1997” – the latter bringing the first of his three general election successes.

But for the most telling comparison we need to go back much further – to1945. The nation then elected its purest True Labour government. This created the welfare state, crowned of course by the NHS but also widening education and building up public services. Until reversed by Margaret Thatcher from 1979, society became fairer.

Why did the nation elect True Labour, or Pure Labour, in 1945? Because, during the Second World War, we had unquestionably been ‘all in it together’. Memories of the pre-war hard times – the Jarrow March and all that – were also still strong. The nation, or at least enough of it to secure an overwhelming Labour victory, was united in its resolve not to see a return to the bad old days.

But the sense of common interest and purpose born in the war, and which endured for two generations afterwards, has now all but vanished. The self-interest encouraged by Mrs Thatcher has triumphed. Those earning money prefer to keep as much in their pockets as possible rather than see it spent on others or public services. Abuses of the welfare state - like having kids as a source of income - haven’t helped. Rather, they’ve driven into the opposition camp many people sympathetic to the welfare concept. (More cheers from Cameron and Co.)

Only in diehard Labour regions like the North-East is the chasm that now exists between True Labour and the public not glaringly apparent. Tony Blair, whose own victories arose from it, declares: “A left wing platform would take the country backwards.” “Yes, to something better,” you might retort. But you’re a North-Easterner, aren’t you?