Japan's Zero Fighter Might Be the Best World War II Fighter



December 12, 2023 

Today, there are fewer than twenty surviving Japanese Zero fighters from World War II in the world, and only a handful are in factory original condition. Most are in museums were restored wrecks, and the aircraft that are still airworthy have had their engines replaced with American units.

by Peter Suciu 


Japan’s Zero was a legendary fighter that made the U.S. military very nervous in the opening days of World War II in the Pacific Ocean after Pearl Harbor. But did it become obsolete? When Mitsubishi AGM Rei-sen entered service in 1940, western military experts shrugged off the reports that the Japanese military possessed a world-class warplane. How wrong they were. The aircraft – better known as the “Zeke” or “Zero” – dominated the skies in the early stages of the Second World War. The single-seat, low wing monoplane proved to have been the most capable carrier-based fighter in service at the time, and it gave the Japanese naval forces almost guaranteed air superiority.



The A6M, which was designed by Horikoshi Jiro, was also noted for being the first carrier-based fighter able to best its land-based opponents. However, beginning in 1943, the tide turned against the Zero with the introduction of more capable Allied fighters.

Japan's Zero Fighter: It Was Fast and Agile

The A6M was produced by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and was first powered by a Nakajima Sakae radial air-cooled engine of 14 cylinders (two staggered rows of seven) that developed 1,020 horsepower. It was hardly a powerful engine, but designers did everything possible to reduce weight.


However, the effort to make it fast and light also meant that it had very little armor and was vulnerable to even the lightest caliber enemy armament. That wasn’t a problem when the aircraft’s speed and agility allowed it dominate the skies, but as more capable Allied aircraft went up against the Zero, it proved deadly for the Japanese pilots. It certainly was never even able to gain mastery over the Grumman F4F Wildcat, whose heavier armament and robust construction compensated for its slightly inferior performance and agility.

Later models of the aircraft were equipped with a 1,130-horsepower engine to turn its three-blade constant-speed propeller. The aircraft’s top speed was 350 miles per hour (565 km/h) at nearly 20,000 feet (6,100 m).

The Zero was armed with two 7.7-millimetre machine guns and two 20-millimetre cannons in its wings; it could carry two 132-pound (59.9-kilogram) bombs under the wings.

Zero Isn’t Really Its Name

The aircraft was never officially designated the “Zero,” and it wasn’t even known as such by the pilots that flew the aircraft. The Mitsubishi A6M Rei-sen was officially designated by the Imperial Japanese Navy as the “Rei-shiki-kanj -sent ki – Type 0 Carrier Fighter,” and the more common moniker comes from the fact that it was essentially named for the Japanese year 2600 (1940).

Japanese military equipment of the era was named for the year – as noted by such weapons as the Type 99 light machine gun that was introduced in 1939. Interestingly, the same year the Mitsubishi A6M was introduced, the Imperial Japanese Army introduced the “Hyaku-shiki kikan-tanj ,” also known as the Type 100 submachine gun. It remains entirely unclear why the IJN used “0” while the IJA used “100” for the same year.


Most Produced Japanese Aircraft of the War

More Zeroes were manufactured during the Second World War than any other Japanese aircraft, and production continued until the very end of the conflict. Sources vary, but somewhere between 10,499 and 10,939 were produced during the war in the Pacific.

Some 125 Zeros participated in the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 and only nine failed to return.

Almost Zero Survive

Today, there are fewer than twenty surviving Zeros in the world and only a handful in factory original condition. Most in museums were restored wrecks, and the aircraft that are still airworthy have had their engines replaced with American units. Only the Planes of Fame Museum in Chino, California has an intact Zero with the original Sakae engine.

The aircraft is so rare that movie and TV productions have had the single-seat North American T-6 Texan – heavily modified and painted with Japanese markings – stand-in for the Zeros. Such aircraft were seen in the film Tora! Tora! Tora! and The Final Countdown, as well as the TV series Black Sheep Squadron.



An original A6M5 Type 0 Model 52, a variant built in the latter stages of the Second World War, did appear in the 2001 Michael Bay epic Pearl Harbor, the model is anachronistic for the era. In addition, that aircraft and the other replicas used in the film were painted green in color, as if they were Japanese Army aircraft. In fact, the Zeros of the IJN that raided Pearl Harbor were silver, but Bay said he liked the way the aircraft looked and that it would help audiences differentiate the “good guys from the bad guys.”

About the Author
Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer who has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers and websites. He regularly writes about military hardware, and is the author of several books on military headgear including A Gallery of Military Headdress, which is available on Amazon.com. Peter is also a Contributing Writer for Forbes.

Main image is from Shutterstock as well as the first intext image. All others are Creative Commons.

 

Discovery of 72-kilometer fault line on Canada's Vancouver Island

by Bob Yirka , Phys.org

(a) GoogleTM satellite image of the suburban region on Saanich Peninsula with the trace of 

the Quaternary scarp on the XELF as a reference. (b) Same extent as (a) showing surficial 

geology overlain on hillshaded digital terrain model showing the Quaternary scarp 

crosscutting the drumlinoid ridge. The Eagle Beach trench and electrical resistivity 

tomography survey locations are shown by black line and the locations of topographic

 profiles 1 and 2 in (c) are shown by red lines at P1 and P2. (c) Topographic profiles across

 the Quaternary scarp at locations P1 and P2 on (b) with vertical separation calculated with

 Monte Carlo simulations using different surface regressions above and below the scarp, 

and different fault locations. Credit: Tectonics (2023). DOI: 10.1029/2023TC008170

A team of geologists, mineralogists and Earth and ocean scientists affiliated with institutions in Canada, the U.S. and France has discovered a 72-kilometer fault line on Canada's Vancouver Island. In their project, reported in the journal Tectonics, the group discovered the fault line after finding evidence of an earthquake on the Saanich Peninsula thousands of years ago.

Earth scientists have long suspected that parts of the Georgia Basin in Canada has a seismic history. But evidence of earthquakes has been difficult to find due to the forest cover in the region. In this new effort, the researchers conducted analysis of historical imagery, conducted remote sensing, hiked through forests and conducted shallow geophysical surveys to learn more about the possible seismic history of the Saanich Peninsula, which is situated on the southeastern part of Vancouver Island.

Part of their effort included digging trenches for clues, which led them to find minerals in rock that suggested magnetic field changes over time—an indication of rock formations that were broken or pulled apart and strong evidence of a fault line. In continuing to study such formations, they found further evidence of a fault line that ran for approximately 72 kilometers.

Additionally, study of the fault line showed it to be of the slip-dip kind, where blocks of rock move up and down against each other, rather than the side-to-side sliding that occurs in other fault lines. The research team named it the XEOLXELEK-Elk Lake Fault, and noted that it runs diagonally (northwest to southeast) along the Saanich Peninsula north of Victoria.

The researchers also note that should an earthquake occur at the site, it is likely that it would generate a tsunami because the fault line passes under the Saanich Inlet. Such a tsunami could strike places in Canada, such as Victoria and Vancouver, and places in the U.S. such as Seattle, Bellingham, Olympia and Tacoma. They also note that it is impossible to tell how soon an earthquake might strike the region, but note that evidence they gathered suggested the last one was approximately 2,300 to 4,700 years ago and that it was likely between magnitude 6.1 and 7.6.

More information: Nicolas Harrichhausen et al, Discovery of an Active Forearc Fault in an Urban Region: Holocene Rupture on the XEOLXELEK‐Elk Lake Fault, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, Tectonics (2023). DOI: 10.1029/2023TC008170

© 2023 Science X Network

Study says Southern California earthquakes increased stress on major fault line

Model shows New Zealand should expect 15-meter tsunami every 580 years

by Bob Yirka , Phys.org

Tsunami hazard from local earthquake sources posed to New Zealand over differing return 

periods. (a) 2,500-year (b) 1,000-year (c) 500-year (d) 100-year. Key population centers, 

Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch, are shown by the black squares. 

Note. A log scale is used to show the expected maximum tsunami wave heights at the coast

. Credit: Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth (2023). DOI: 10.1029/2023JB027207

A team of geographers, Earth scientists and environmental scientists affiliated with several institutions in New Zealand, working with that country's National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, has found that it is possible to model the number and type of tsunamis that are likely to strike a given area over a given period of time.

In their paper published in the journal Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, the group describes the model they built and the types of data they gave it to help them gain some insight into the number and types of earthquakes New Zealand is likely to experience in the coming years, along with possible tsunamis.

New Zealand is known for its periodic earthquakes—just seven years ago, the 7.8 magnitude Kaikōura quake struck parts of Marlborough and northern Canterbury. Less well known are its tsunamis. This is likely because they happen far less often. The last major tsunami to strike New Zealand was in 1868, and that was triggered by an earthquake in Chile.

Still, because New Zealand sits near two subduction zones, scientists know that one is likely to strike sometime in the future. The only questions are when and how big will it be. To make some educated guesses, the researchers involved in this new study created a model designed to show earthquakes and related tsunamis that have struck in the past and to predict when they may strike in the future.

Prior research efforts have uncovered historical records of earthquakes but they only go back approximately a century and a half. Prior geological research has also revealed evidence of older quakes and resulting tsunamis, but such studies have not been able to reveal much about the long histories of earthquakes striking New Zealand. The researchers used data from such studies to create their model and added other data, such as information about the geometry of the region, fault system physics and the physical locations of faults in the region, and the amount of friction that has been measured.

They then ran simulations covering 30,000 years of simulated history showing all the likely earthquakes that have struck the region during that time. It showed 2,585 earthquakes with magnitudes ranging from 7.0 to 9.25. The model also showed which subduction zones are likely to be the source of earthquakes causing locally generated tsunamis. They then calculated the size of tsunamis based on earthquake strength and found that the largest would likely be approximately 28 meters. The model also suggested that New Zealand is likely to experience a tsunami of at least five meters every 77 years, and one of 15 meters every 580 years.

More information: Laura Hughes et al, A Novel Method to Determine Probabilistic Tsunami Hazard Using a Physics‐Based Synthetic Earthquake Catalog: A New Zealand Case Study, Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth (2023). DOI: 10.1029/2023JB027207

Journal information: Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Eart© 2023 Science X Network

Source of Indonesian earthquakes and tsunamis located

This is bigger than COVID: Why are so many Americans dying early?

BY PIERRE KORY AND MARY BETH PFEIFFER, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR - 12/12/23 

Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Robert Califf recently took to X to mourn the “catastrophic” decline in U.S. life expectancy. 

But his post, which hit on smoking, diet, chronic illness and health care, ignored the obvious: People are dying in abnormally high numbers even now and long since COVID waned. Yet public health agencies and medical societies are silent. 

Life insurers have been consistently sounding the alarm over these unexpected or, “excess,” deaths, which claimed 158,000 more Americans in the first nine months of 2023 than in the same period in 2019. That exceeds America’s combined losses from every war since Vietnam. Congress should urgently work with insurance experts to investigate this troubling trend. 

With the worst of COVID behind us, annual deaths for all causes should be back to pre-pandemic levels — or even lower because of the loss of so many sick and infirm Americans. Instead, the death toll remains “alarming,” “disturbing,” and deserving of “urgent attention,” according to insurance industry articles.

Actuarial reports — used by insurers to inform decisions — show deaths occurring disproportionately among young working-age people. Nonetheless, America’s chief health manager, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, opted in September to archive its excess deaths webpage with a note stating, “these datasets will no longer be updated.” 

Money, of course, is a motivating issue for insurers. In 2020, death claims took their biggest one-year leap since the 1918 influenza scourge, jumping 15.4 percent to $90 billion in payouts. After hitting $100 billion in 2021, claims slowed in 2022, but are still above 2019. Indemnity experts are urging the adoption of an early-warning program to detect looming health problems among people with life insurance and keep them alive.

Unlike in the pandemic’s early phase, these deaths are not primarily among the old. For people 65 and over, deaths in the second quarter of 2023 were 6 percent below the pre-pandemic norm, according to a new report from the Society of Actuaries. Mortality was 26 percent higher among insured 35-to-44-year-olds, and 19 percent higher for 25-to-34-year-olds, continuing a death spike that peaked in the third quarter of 2021 at a staggering 101 percent and 79 percent above normal, respectively. 

“COVID-19 claims do not fully explain the increase in incurred claim incidence,” the Society said. COVID-19 deaths dropped 84 percent from the first three quarters of 2021 to the same period in 2023.

To some extent, we know what is killing the young, with an actuarial analysis of government data showing mortality increases in liver, kidney and cardiovascular diseases, and diabetes. Drug overdoses also soared nationwide, but not primarily in the young working class. Therein lies the most pressing question for insurers, epidemiologists and health agency officials. Why is the traditionally healthiest sector of our society — young, employed, insured workers — dying at such rates? Public health officials aggressively oversaw the pandemic response, for better or worse. Why aren’t they looking into this? 

In the United Kingdom, where post-pandemic excess deaths in similar demographics also persist, a government-funded independent inquiry is underway. “With each passing week of the COVID inquiry,” the BBC reported recently, “it is clear there were deep flaws in the way decisions were made and information provided during the pandemic.” 

The United States needs such an examination of the measures taken to fight the pandemic. This probe — by a high-level, unbiased commission — should focus on what worked and what did not.

Lockdowns limited access to education, social interaction and healthcare with documented harm to childhood development, mental health and the economy. Treatment protocols dictated how doctors should deliver COVID care — primarily in hospitals and with expensive medicines — and limited early access to generic drugs that might have helped. 

Vaccines were given to more than 270 million people, among them babies, pregnant women and workers under employer mandates. The therapeutic’s “warp speed,” emergency use authorization must be part of any post-pandemic analysis, in light of more than 1 million reports of possible harm to the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System and a new Yale University study validating a chronic post-vaccination syndrome. 

Finally, government officials who sanctioned unprecedented censorship of dissent — enforcing pandemic measures through media pressure — must be called to account.  

Actuaries and industry analysts predict excess deaths will continue among people with life insurance through 2030 and are “anticipated to be highest at younger ages.” This prediction defies normal expectations of mortality for a robust population of people with life insurance. Now consider how other disability-afflicted, poorly insured Americans may fare.

To ensure future generations are protected and to be ready for the possibility of another pandemic, Congress needs to assess what worked and what did not. 

Dr. Pierre Kory, M.D., is president and chief medical officer of the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance. Mary Beth Pfeiffer is an investigative reporter and author.

 

Young Californians allege intentional discrimination in greenhouse gas emissions in lawsuit

BY ZACK BUDRYK - 12/12/23 

Downtown Los Angeles is shrouded in early morning coastal fog and smog on Friday, Oct. 26, 2018. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)

Eighteen Californian children have filed a lawsuit alleging the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) failed to protect them from the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions and the resulting climate change.

The lawsuit, led by plaintiff “Genesis B.” of Long Beach, argues that insufficient EPA action on climate change has directly resulted in harms specific to children and their development. Genesis’s home is not air-conditioned, which leaves her particularly impacted by the increasingly common extreme heat in the state, the lawsuit states. For example, numerous days have been too hot for her to focus on schoolwork until the evening, her attorneys argue.

The plaintiffs allege that the EPA has known about greenhouse gas emissions’ impacts on children for years. The lawsuit also seeks to build on the precedent established by the West Virginia vs. EPA Supreme Court decision, in which the high court ruled that the agency did not have the authority to implement an Obama-era power plant rule, to argue that the EPA went outside its scope of authority by “systematically” allowing such pollution to continue.

“Children are harmed by the effects of the climate crisis in ways that are different from and worse than fully developed adults because Children’s bodies and minds are still growing, they are still dependent on adults, they have different needs and behaviors from adults, and because of their longevity of life this century and into the next one,” the lawsuit states. 

The plaintiffs are represented by the organization Our Children’s Trust, which recently represented another group of minors who successfully sued the state of Montana earlier this year over a state policy that barred factoring climate impacts into the approval process for energy projects.

“There is one federal agency explicitly tasked with keeping the air clean and controlling pollution to protect the health of every child and the welfare of a nation—the EPA,” Julia Olson, chief legal counsel for Our Children’s Trust, said in a statement. “The agency has done the opposite when it comes to climate pollution and it’s time the EPA is held accountable by our courts for violating the U.S. Constitution and misappropriating its congressionally delegated authority.”

The EPA told The Hill that it does not comment on pending litigation.

TAGS

MYANMAR
Karenni forces take two key locations in Kayah State

A month after Operation 1111 began, ethnic militias reportedly overwhelm junta forces, and are now close to complete control of the state capital, Loikaw, and Moebye, a strategically important township. Meanwhile, the civilian death toll continues to rise: At least 82 have been killed since the start of the offensive.

Yangon (AsiaNews) – A month after the start of the military offensive against Myanmar’s army in Kayah State, ethnic Karenni forces have taken control of the capital Loikaw and the strategic township of Moebye, the Karenni Army (KA) reported.

Together with the Karenni National Defence Force (KNDF) and the People's Defence Force, a paramilitary movement opposed to the junta, KA launched Operation 1111 in the border area between Shan and Kayah.

A KA source told Radio Free Asia (RFA) that the rebels control “all of Moebye township”, with the exception of an area held by Battalion 422, and "80% of the city of Loikaw".

"We are carrying out attacks very cautiously to avoid civilian casualties and damage," said Colonel Phone Naing. “We will first remove all the junta troops, then we will set up an administrative mechanism there.”

One of the “pillars of the junta", the Kayah State Police Headquarters, under the control of the Myanmar Home Affairs Ministry, was demolished.

While waiting to set up an administration to replace the junta, the militias have taken control of security to protect the population.

For political analyst Than Soe Naing, Loikaw’s strategic importance is crucial for the control and supply of other cities in Kayah State.

Recently, the junta blocked humanitarian aid from reaching the population, even going so far as to occupy the cathedral in an attempt to punish rebels and civilians and shield themselves in a sacred place.

“The city is almost under control,” the analyst said. “However, it cannot be said that it has been fully controlled as the main camp is still in the hands of the junta, and they are still using Loikaw airport for reinforcements and other military supplies.”

Meanwhile, the Karenni Humanitarian Aid Initiative (KHAI) is reporting that at least 82 civilians died between 11 November (start of Operation 1111) and 8 December: 39 men, 18 women, 12 minors, two novice monks, and 11 people who could not be identified.

Of these, 43 were killed by artillery shelling, 24 in airstrikes, and 15 by small arms fire. KHAI said the junta carried out 353 airstrikes on Loikaw over 20 days between 11 and 30 November, with about 10,000 people trapped without means of escape.

A KHAI member, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that those displaced by the fighting in Kayah State are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance.

 The Americas | Will he, won’t he?

Could Mark Carney lead Canada?

The former central-bank governor is coy, but clearly has political ambitions

THE ECONOMIST

Dec 12th 2023 | OTTAWA

The eyes of every diner seem to follow Mark Carney, the dapper two-time former central-bank governor, as he bounds into a busy Sri Lankan restaurant in Ottawa, the capital of Canada. He sits down at the table with a smile, which vanishes when he realises he will be asked what he calls “that awful question”: will he run to be Canada’s next prime minister?

Canada must hold a general election within the next two years. Justin Trudeau, the prime minister since 2015, is unpopular and leads a minority government. A recent poll by Ipsos suggested that fully 72% of Canadians feel that Mr Trudeau should step down as the leader of the Liberal Party before the vote. Mr Carney is among a handful of potential candidates to replace him, including Chrystia Freeland, the current finance minister and Mélanie Joly, the minister of foreign affairs. Ms Freeland leads the polls as Mr Trudeau’s replacement, with 25% of those asked saying they have a positive opinion of her, compared with 18% for Ms Joly and 16% for Mr Carney (most answer that they “do not know”).

Mr Carny has not yet explicitly stated his intention to throw his hat in the ring. When speaking with The Economist he says, evasively: “If you can avoid going into politics it’s better not to go into politics”.

Even so, it is clear that he harbours ambitions. Mr Carney’s close advisers, as well as one of Mr Trudeau’s counsellors, say the two men have spoken several times since 2019, in order to try to get him to join the prime minister’s team. Those advising Mr Carney say that if Mr Trudeau offers him a parliamentary seat close to his home in Ottawa, as well as a meaningful role in cabinet, he will make the leap from the private sector. They also believe that he would make a bid for party leadership, should Mr Trudeau step down before the election.

But does the former bank boss have what it takes? Mr Carney’s cv is in many ways a textbook instance of the metropolitan liberal elite. He grew up in Alberta and was educated at Harvard and Oxford, before working for Goldman Sachs, a bank. In 2004 he moved to Canada’s department of finance, to work as a civil servant for Stephen Harper, the Conservative prime minister. In 2008 he became governor of the Bank of Canada just after the global financial crisis struck. Mr Carney was the public face of a decision to cut interest rates by 0.5 percentage points one month into his appointment. Canada came out of the recession faster than other g7 economies.

In 2013 he became the first non-Briton to head the Bank of England since it was founded in 1694. He was pummelled by conservatives for his blunt warnings about Brexit and climate change (though Michael Gove, when justice minister, lauded him for preparing well for the former). He ended that role in 2020, and now spends half of his time working pro bono as the un special envoy for climate action and finance. The other half is spent as chairman of Bloomberg lp, a media company, and as head of impact investing at Brookfield Asset Management, a fund.

Although he has never been elected to anything, Mr Carney does not lack self-belief. And he has big ambitions for his country: “We can be leaders…or we can be followers. The nature of this country in the past has been to be a leader. We should be again.” He wants Canada to be “an energy superpower”, along with building up ai prowess and building houses “at a totally different scale”. He is a “big believer” in the power of public policy going hand-in-hand with free markets. When asked which political leaders he admires, he includes Mr Harper in a short list, and jokes: “clearly he had good judgment in selecting me.” He is also a fan of Pope Francis and Emmanuel Macron, the president of France.

Should he come to power, one of the biggest issues he will have to deal with is economic: the unaffordability of Canadian housing. Since 2000 real house prices in Canada have grown faster than any other g7 country (see chart). “People are worried about falling behind as opposed to getting ahead,” he says. Over the past decade, and under Mr Trudeau’s watch, the widely quoted benchmark price of a house in Canada has doubled, to c$760,000 ($560,000). 

Mr Carney is critical of Mr Trudeau’s decision in October to water down Canada’s modest carbon tax. He thinks far more could be done to tackle climate change. Just as Canada has successfully exploited its oil sands he wants it to take the lead developing green technologies such as carbon capture and storage, hydrogen and nuclear reactors. More generally, Mr Carney is among many who acknowledge that, globally, liberalism has taken a battering. The world is at a “moment...where the accepted forces and policies that have been in place virtually all my adult life are changing.” That is true in Canada, too.

Pierre Poilievre, the leader of the Conservative Party, has blamed Mr Carney for Canada’s housing woes (because he loosened monetary policy in 2008). The pugilistic Mr Poilievre seems keen to go head-to-head with Mr Carney, who he says is “the incoming leader of the Liberal party”. Would Mr Carney’s technocratic, globe-trotting persona appeal to ordinary Canadians? Possibly not. But Mr Carney’s response to the Conservative’s populist brand of politics is unapologetic: “This is not a time for novices.” 

RED TORY
Starmer writes off post-Blair Labour as he pitches to Tory voters



Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer gives a keynote speech marking the four-year anniversary of the 2019 election, at Silverstone Technology Park, near Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire. Picture date: Tuesday December 12, 2023.

SIR KEIR STARMER has been condemned for insulting a generation of Labour activists as he wrote off the party’s post-Blair history today.

Making a speech to mark the fourth anniversary of the 2019 general election defeat, Sir Keir claimed Labour had lost its way even before the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, which he routinely denounces.

“Working people up and down the country looked at how we’d lost our way, not just under Jeremy Corbyn, but for a while, and they said ‘no’,” he said.

He claimed that Labour under his predecessors had “reneged on our old partnership, the Labour bargain that we serve working people as they drive the country forward.”

Left campaign group Momentum responded that the Labour leader’s speech was “an insult to Labour members who gave it all to change the country for the better.”

It added that Sir Keir was peddling a “disingenuous analysis which equates conformity with service and Labour values with indulgence.”

Sir Keir’s “wasted years” analysis not only overlooked the 2017 general election, which saw Labour’s highest vote this century but may as well never have happened for the party’s right wing, it also put the spotlight on the preceding years of Ed Miliband’s leadership.

Mr Miliband led Labour to heavy defeat in 2015 and is also despised by Labour’s Blairites, yet he continues to serve in Sir Keir’s shadow cabinet, holding down the climate change portfolio.

Sir Keir claimed today that no slight was intended by his remarks: “Ed Miliband’s a very good member of my shadow cabinet on a very important brief.

“But as a party, we drifted too far from the core function of serving working people.”

His speech confirmed the conservative turn he has imposed on the “changed” Labour Party.

He claimed that it had “broken new ground in our relationship with business” and “gets the value of private enterprise.”

Sir Keir reiterated his support for strict public spending controls and said that “economic stability is the foundation for everything.”

He also attacked the Tories for permitting high immigration after Brexit, which he acknowledged was “a vote for change.”

Sir Keir pledged that there would be a “total crackdown on cronyism” under Labour, with “no more VIP fast lanes, no more kickbacks for colleagues, no more revolving doors between government and the companies they regulate.”