Why can’t Jeremy Corbyn be a left-wing Farage? Why can’t he threaten Labour as Ukip and its successor parties threatened and continue to threaten the Tories? There is a gap in the market for a party to the left of Labour, and Corbyn seems just the man to fill it.

Those of us who intensely disliked his leadership of the Labour party disliked most of all the gormless personality cult which surrounded him and did so much to destroy the left’s claim to possess a sceptical intelligence.