The man standing on top of the fire engine was growing mildly irate. If Jeremy Corbyn’s policies were “lunatic ideas”, he cried, then “we should all put our hands up, and say we’re all lunatics!”

“Hooray!” shouted the crowd in the street, putting their hands up.

“We should all be proud lunatics!” he cried.

“Hooray!” shouted everyone again.

Jeremy Corbyn’s latest leadership rally took place at lunchtime in Stoke city centre. Like all his rallies, it drew a crowd that was both large and adulatory. The air bobbed with pro-Corbyn balloons. The decommissioned fire engine employed as a stage was plastered with supportive placards (“Jeremy Corbyn: Winning Values”, “Coal Not Dole: The Miners’ Strike 30 Years On”). Two young men performed Don’t Stop Believing by Journey on the trumpet.