These are heady days for political junkies, what with Supreme Court rulings, the hasty return of MPs to Westminster and, through it all, the spectacle of party conference season.

The Tory party conference is up in the air since MPs decided yesterday not to allow for a mini-recess that would let the Tories gather in Manchester, but the Labour conference in Brighton last week offered us some real treats.

Jeremy Corbyn is obsessed with party democracy, in the way that old socialists so often are. Nothing thrills them quite like a contested floor-vote or a packed local meeting of activists quibbling over the branch constitution. In this spirit he vowed to let party members determine party policy.

But who are these members?

Youll have seen them on the news, chanting Corbyns name and reaching to touch him as he walks past.

In a bid to understand them, YouGov surveyed the Labour membership in the run up to their conference and heres what we know: 62 per cent of them would do away with the monarchy, 43 per cent are ashamed of Britains past, 70 per cent support nuclear disarmament, a serious chunk of them remain sympathetic to the IRA and almost half agree that nations should remove all borders. You get the picture.

Having given these people the power to shape Labours next manifesto (and so potentially the country) its little surprise that vote after vote in Brighton committed the party to such nuanced and considered policies as the abolition of private education, the closure of all immigration detention centres, the expansion of free movement and the ruinously (almost hilariously) expensive policy of achieving zero carbon emissions by 2030.

Labours conference did not reveal a government in waiting. Instead it revealed a self-indulgent student union masquerading as a government in waiting. It was farcical, funny and frightening.

Jacques Chirac leaves a colourful and varied legacy. Taking France into the euro, opposing the Iraq war and, of course, corruption scandals.

I have a lawyer friend who, through the course of his work on a particular case, identified a luxurious north African retreat where the former French President would stay and (allegedly) conduct some lucrative extra-curricular activities.

My friend was so taken with this hideaway that he booked it for his honeymoon.

Congratulations to my friend Mervyn Metcalf, founder of boutique investment bank Dean Street Advisers, who on Thursday celebrated 25 years of working in the City.

To mark the occasion he took his team for a long lunch at the Ned but had started the day with a client briefing on the potential impact of a future Corbyn government.

So it was a case of strong drinks at breakfast followed by champagne to revive the spirits over lunch. Sounds like not much has changed in Mervyns 25 years.

Nobody comes out well from the debate over language currently gripping Westminster.

The PM was crass in response to concerns raised about threats sent to female MPs and he should be held to a higher standard.

However, its a bit late in the day for Labour to realise that words have consequences. John McDonnell once praised the bombs and the bullets of the IRA and infamously joked about lynching the b**ch Esther McVey.

He vows to jail Tories once hes in office, has openly fantasised about killing Margaret Thatcher and has accused the Tories of social murder.

Anyone whos ever braved the hard left protesters outside a Tory party conference will know that some people feed off such comments.

Labours Jess Phillips, so vocal on this issue, once declared that she would knife Corbyn in the front.

Each side is capable of whipping up their supporters and they do so deliberately. There is very little room on the moral high ground for all the MPs currently seeking to occupy it.

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The Labour party is unfit for anything but protest - City A.M.