January marks the arrival of a new-style Jeremy Corbyn, a party leader whom aides are said to have revamped to be even more of a radical, leftwing populist, railing against the establishment.

That means more than a flick of the renegade politician unveiled during his original successful leadership contest in 2015. Jeremy 2.0, as some commentators are labelling him, is really about letting Corbyn play himself in an expanded and more regular series of television and radio appearances.

In 2017, that means a politician who is ready to roll out the more radical ideas that he first floated when becoming leader, for instance telling Radio 4’s Today programme that he would like to see a maximum wage for workers.

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In his first speech of the year, Corbyn did not go quite as far as his own earlier comments about a “maximum wage cap”, but he did announce plans for a proposed 20:1 pay ratio in any company that is awarded a government contract.

Arguing that it was unacceptable for some people to earn in two-and-a-bit days what a nurse would take home in a year, Corbyn also deployed a series of eye-catching ideas that Labour could pursue in tackling the inequality. They included kite marks for companies with pay ratios, executive pay signed off by committees on which workers have a majority and a higher rate of income tax for the very rich.

All of that came in a speech after he had told radio interviewers that he would happily join striking rail workers on a picket line in protest at Southern rail.

The set of pledges came alongside slightly confused positioning on immigration, with Corbyn accused of failing to hold to an overnight briefing from his aides about Labour no longer being wedded to the principle of free movement of labour between the UK and the rest of the EU.

His day in front of the cameras, followed by a speech, resulted in a hammering in parts of the rightwing media, with claims of U-turns on U-turns. The Telegraph slammed his “car crash reboot” while the Daily Mail claimed “shambolic Corbyn” had dropped an “idiotic” plan for a maximum wage and attacked the idea of a new higher tax rate.

Strategists hope the rebranded Corbyn might relish the scorn of newspapers and broadcasters as a way of mobilising his supporters online instead. Some say the Labour leader is trying to echo Donald Trump by adopting a more combative stance against the mainstream media. They believe his brand of outspoken, leftwing populism is well known among some, but has not been sold successfully to large swaths of voters.

There will be vociferous disagreement within Labour about whether Corbyn is making the right moves, but most agree that action is urgent, with the party lagging in polls. Recent months have underlined Labour’s electoral challenge, as it grapples to find a strategy that can both appeal to the pro-EU sentiment of its 2015 voters and the disaffection of those who backed leave in the party’s northern heartlands.

Two terrible byelection performances illustrated a party being squeezed at both ends of the spectrum, with socially liberal remain voters eyeing up the Lib Dems, while Ukip woos its traditional working class base.

Now Corbyn has the headache of another key byelection in marginal Copeland in Cumbria, where the main employer is the nuclear processor Sellafield. His stance on nuclear arms could prove difficult for Labour’s candidate.

Jeremy 2.0 doesn’t have long to make his mark.