(1) A really basic (re)discovery of the Corbyn era was that having lots of big rallies full of enthusiastic people can very much help you attract voters. A huge amount of effort was put into denying this really rather obvious fact

(2)In Labour circles the idea of a "Big Rally" was supposed to be over since Kinnock's 1992 Sheffield Rally went badly. The (exaggerated) effect of this event was used to shift elections to soundbites, staged appearances and other non-events.

(3)But the way Corbyn's rallies revived his 2015 leadership and 2017 election campaigns - and how other figures, including Bernie Sanders, and from the Right, Trump, used big rallies to break into politics , put them back on the agenda

(4)They work because t they appear on the local and national news, where crowds of - especially young , or down-to-earth, enthusiastic people counterbalances (especially OTT) negative press, and because they enthuse the people there to turn out, vote and campaign

(5)That seems really simple and obvious - but a huge effort by pundits and reporters was put in to say "Just preaching to the converted" "Makes no difference" "will put ordinary people off" "a cult" "remember Kinnock and Sheffield ! Get back to soundbites !" and so forth

(6)There was also a comparison with "Mass rallies Michael Foot held in the failed 1983 election" which was wierd and false : Foot wasn't the left candidate and didn't really hold the mass, enthusastic, grass-rootsy events typifying Corbyn 2015-7 (he did address some demos)

(7)IMHO Pundits often put great effort into denigrating grassroots-y rallies out of professional jealousy - because they know they work: They are the "professionals" of politics, they don't like the "amateurs" running the shop. Like gatekeepers watching crowds surge past the gate

(8)Another backhanded complement to the power of big grassroots-y rallies was the great attention to "Labour Live" : This was set to be one of the less succcesful big Corbyn events (partly because Labour HQ people who didn't have a feel for these things had, unusually, called it)

(9)Sensing weakness where there had been strength, all the worst people focussed on Labour Live : Pundits, obsessively hoping it would fail (skin-of-the-teeth and a big investment) it didn't. Plus also a crappy hijack by multi-millionaire funded anti-Corbyn phony Remain groups

(10)In another backhanded complement, post-election Theresa May was revealed to have asked, pliantively, for her own rallies to match Corbyn's, and told that sadly that could not happen - she must settle for closed meetings with handpicked crowds at bowling clubs and the like

(11)Anyway, this is just a reminder this happened in history, before it is buried 2019 election , with it's completely staged events (Boris in a donors factory with a captive audience smashing a polystyrene wall with a digger) and fake events (Labour attack Tories at hospital )