Labour’s conference ended with communism’s ankle-swinger, The Red Flag. Its singing was led by Andy Burnham and Shabana Mahmood, the Home Secretary masticating magnificently as she warbled the words. In her soul there may lurk a mini Bianca Castafiore, the diva from Tintin.

What a festival of bosom-clutching and operatic melodrama these four days in tramp-ridden Liverpool were.

When speakers referred to Reform or the Tories it was as if thunder-sheets were being rattled. Mentions of Donald Trump brought further menace – deep drums being bonged and sul ponticello strings. Socialists do love to hate. Poor Mrs Thatcher was given repeated drubbings. She left office a mere 35 years ago.

Just as they overdo the loathing, they are quick to sentimentality. At any mention of ‘Andy’, particularly after his leaky-hose speech on Tuesday, there came a swell of violins and a soupy romanticism worthy of Ralph Vaughan Williams. ‘Didn’t Andy do so brilliantly well?’ fluted deputy leader Lucy Powell in the conference’s last speech. She had found the gathering so emotionally draining that she intended to ‘go home and sleep for a week’. Her work as Education Secretary will have to wait.

Ms Powell, one of life’s droning altos, essayed a protracted football analogy in which Mr Burnham was ‘our star striker, our Erling Haaland’. At that very moment, by veritable miracle, Mr Burnham shuffled on stage, all droopy shoulders and bogus modesty. My dears, corn levels have not been this high since the heyday of Lassie. It does seem a pity that a prime minister looks at the ground so much when walking.

The smallish crowd (last day of a Labour conference is never well attended owing to hangovers) creaked to its feet and obediently gave hosannas to their new leader. Mr Burnham responded with a namaste of joined palms and little bows.

This is the new gesture for Labour grandees. Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy did a lot of it earlier in the morning. She also kept touching herself, as if communicating by some form of sign language. The idea, I think, was to convey emotional connection and, perhaps, the depth of her virtue. If the Archbishop of Canterbury doesn’t raise her game, she could find herself out of a job.

Vanity levels were brought back earthwards by Dame Angela Eagle, who has finally made it to Cabinet after being an MP since 1992. ‘It’s been a really meteoric rise,’ said the Environment Secretary in her Don Estelle voice. Dame Angela is a mordant old sausage but she came a bit of a cropper when she tried to thank her ministerial team. She forgot some of their names.

One was Jenny Riddell-Carpenter, that nincompoop who came out this week with the theory that taking a black labrador to a country pub for a pint of real ale was racist. Dame Angela managed to call her ‘Penny’.

Up bounced Yvette Cooper to celebrate being made Health Secretary. Her speech gave birth to a Maternity and Neo-Natal Commissioner. The audience whooped and cheered as if the Berlin Wall had been rebuilt.

It is hard to credit that elfin Yvette is now one of the senior professionals. And yet she still hasn’t worked out her voice. It veers from Cockney glottal stops to northern vowels by way of Californian uplift. Why does any British person of 57 use uplift?

One of the targets of her speech was George Osborne, because he had stopped spending public money on Sure Start centres when Chancellor. In addition to Osborne and Thatcher, we also heard about Bessie Braddock (d. 1970) and Aneurin Bevan (d. 1960).

At earlier points in the conference there were saccharine references to the Tolpuddle Martyrs (1834), Clement Attlee (d. 1967), Ernie Bevin (d. 1951), Gordon Brown (numerous mentions), Barbara Castle (d. 2002), the Jarrow marchers (1936) and various people’s dead parents. Never has a conference felt so sepia-toned.

Next: the dotty Greens in Brighton, then Conservatives in Brum. If anyone evokes Ted Heath, I may scream.