Last night I finally got round to watching the Vice documentary on Jeremy Corbyn. I had heard and read much about it, so little of its contents were a surprise. But it was my wife, Carolyn, who – perhaps because she is largely apolitical – was able to pinpoint its central reveal.

“God, he’s bitter, isn’t he?”

And it’s true. The Labour leader, filmed just six months into his tenure, rarely looks less than angry at his treatment at the hands of the media, a kind of tight-lipped, seething passive aggression that makes the whole thing surprisingly difficult to watch.

So in one sense, he can hardly be blamed if, on occasion, he seeks to create his own media narrative. In fact, that seems to be what his many, many critics want from him: a sense of political and media strategy that will persuade the public that even if he’s not prime ministerial material, he can at least be leader of the opposition material.

And then he caught a train to Newcastle and his entourage sensed an opportunity.

I bet they wish they hadn’t bothered now.