Have I gone to sleep and woken up in 1986? Or has compulsory competitive tendering (CCT) made a surprise comeback without my knowledge?

Those were my reactions when I heard Jeremy Corbyn's speech at last weekend's Labour local government conference when he promised to give councils freedoms ‘to roll back the tide of forced privatisation'. For those with long memories, CCT, first created in 1980, was abolished in 2000 by the Labour government. Part of the deal, however, with sceptical Blairite ministers was that this must not be seen as a return to the old days of ‘producerism' so a voluntary regime was created in which ‘best value' was the determinant of whether a service should be in or out house. One of its architects was then union chief Jack Dromey, now one of Mr Corbyn's team as a shadow Home Office minister.