So much for Jeremy Corbyn's call for Labour to wipe the slate clean

So much for wiping the slate clean, as Jeremy Corbyn told his warring party to do after he swept aside his challenger Owen Smith by a big majority.

Instead of starting afresh and burying their differences, the Labour leaders' supporters and his opponents are continuing to clash with the same ferocity.

And it's not pretty. The most ugly clash came between John McDonnell and Yvette Cooper over the shadow chancellor's controversial call before the last election for the former Tory MP Esther McVey to be "lynched".

The timing could not have been worse, coming just hours before an emotional tribute in the conference hall to Labour MP Jo Cox, who was killed after being shot and stabbed in her Batley and Spen constituency in June.

In a TV clash with Ms Cooper, Mr McDonnell defended his comments about Ms McVey, which included telling MPs in the Commons in March last year that the then employment minister was a "stain on humanity".

"Sometimes you just have to express honest anger," said the firebrand shadow chancellor, who surely ought to have had the good grace to apologise and also appeared to have forgotten Denis Healey's first law of politics: "When you're in a hole, stop digging."

Hours later, Ms Cooper was among senior members of Labour's shadow cabinet who attended a packed rally at which many of the speakers complained of abuse by Mr Corbyn's supporters directed at his critics.

The star turn was Hilary Benn, dramatically sacked from the shadow cabinet by Mr Corbyn in the early hours of a Sunday morning in the summer after he was reported to be plotting a coup against the Labour leader.

The atmosphere within Labour was "pretty unpleasant", he said. Critics of the leader had been subjected to "vile abuse", he added.

Former shadow cabinet minister Michael Dugher claimed members of the hard left had been "screaming at the delegates" on their way into the conference.

And Angela Eagle, who was given a standing ovation, said: "We have all been subject to massive amounts of disgraceful and disgusting vile abuse."

She said she received 47,000 pieces of abuse after the simple act of changing her Facebook photo.

Besides their complaints about abuse, many Labour MPs are gripped by fear of de-selection by Mr Corbyn's left-wing allies with boundary changes looming.

In a TV interview, Mr Corbyn said: "The vast majority of MPs will have no problem whatsoever." But it's unlikely that many Labour MPs will be reassured by that.

Also speaking at the Benn-Cooper rally, the deputy leader of the steelworkers' union Community, John McHugh, said if people wanted to de-select Redcar MP Anna Turley, who backed Mr Smith against Mr Corbyn: "I'll be standing right beside her!"

Labour MP Louise Ellman has sent Mr Corbyn and the party's ruling national executive a dossier alleging "entryism" by hard-left activists from Momentum and moves to de-select her in her Liverpool Riverside constituency.

Yet at the same time as Ms Cooper, Mr Benn, Ms Eagle and the other shadow cabinet refusniks were speaking at their rally, Mr Corbyn was lauding the left-wing activists at the Momentum conference taking place in Liverpool simultaneously with the official party conference.

"This event here might be described by many as some kind of a fringe, stream or whatever, event," said the Labour chief.

"I see the kind of discussions in this programme here as absolutely central and mainstream."

Mainstream? Momentum? As long as Mr Corbyn says Momentum is mainstream, many Labour MPs will not be prepared to wipe the slate clean.