Boris Johnson was absurd to launch his election campaign by comparing Jeremy Corbyn to Stalin. A vicious enemy of the bourgeoisie Joseph Vissarionovich may have been, but the late general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party was also highly intelligent, an organisational genius and never less than decisive. Whereas Comrade Corbyn . . .

In fact, the Labour leader began his own campaign with a truly embarrassing interview in The Guardian, in which he claimed it was only his decisiveness that had forced the shadow cabinet to vote in the Commons for a December election: “I put it to them quite clearly . . . I said we are now supporting a general election — and everyone gulped . . . On my own. I