As the ~~cynics~~ realists among us know, the art of electoral politics is to bribe enough people with other peoples' money that you've managed to buy enough votes. Which is what Jeremy Corbyn is doing here:

Corbynmania went into orbit when the Labour leadership frontrunner revealed he would reopen coal mines if he becomes Prime Minister.

Bookies favourite Jeremy Corbyn has unveiled his vision for the country, which includes nationalising parts of the gas and electricity sector and “where you can” reopening pits.

That's all three of the remaining members of the NUM onside, plus any number of Labour Party romantics who get all hot and sweaty at the thought of manly men doing manly things like dying of black lung and being crushed by cave ins.

“I think we can develop coal technology. Let's do so because energy prices around the world are going up. Open cast mining is not acceptable, deep mined coal is possible and is an alternative.

Open cast mining: it's not that it creates a hole in the ground that is the problem (and the spoil piles of deep mining are just as much of an eyesore) it's that it can be done with two men and a dog which isn't going to revive that industrial proletariat that all too many still swoon over.

And clean coal, carbon capture, simply isn't going to happen in anything approaching a reality that we would want to live in. Quite apart from anything else, any technology that actually works (not something we're sure can be achieved) would turn out to be vastly cheaper if applied to natural gas rather than coal. So the very idea of clean coal is pretty much a non-starter.

But then this is an election campaign, isn't it? Nothing anyone says has to make any sense, it just has to buy those votes....