Jeremy Corbyn’s one true virtue

Enough of all these vital, apocalyptic, existential elections. They don’t half wear you out. The Scottish referendum was vital and apocalyptic, so they said, because the wrong decision would have seen Britain crack like a plate, and Scotland spiral off into insane debt, and residual Britain fade in geopolitical importance. Or, on other side, Tory rule for a millennium, which no Scot could ever want. Hmmm. Then the 2015 election was vital and apocalyptic, too, because Ed Miliband… Ed Miliband…

Hang on. What was the big problem with Ed Miliband? There definitely was one. Ah yes, his dad hated Britain. Also he was incompetent. Didn’t even know how many kitchens he had. Couldn’t eat a sandwich. Or hold a banana. Unless that was somebody else. Still, everybody knew he couldn’t possibly be PM because Britain’s international reputation would take a battering, because we’d abruptly be regarded as flaky and mad. So thank God we avoided all that, eh?

Then the Brexit referendum was also apocalyptic. If we left, some said, the economy would tank, the pound would plummet, the Prime Minister would resign, the deficit would widen, and the Europeans would hate us. Ha! The fools! Imagine believing that! Whereas if we didn’t, remember, it was going to be wall-to-wall Turks. They were going to be everywhere. In your schools, in your house. Probably in your fridge. Turks in your fridge! Horrifying. It was your last chance to save Britain. Man, it was fraught.

Then there was Trump versus Clinton, which wasn’t ours, but was still a contest between two people who each presented themselves as the last chance to save America from the final, unstoppable, runaway-train horror of each other. Then Macron versus Le Pen, which was the same.

Now we have May versus Corbyn.