Theresa May has called Jeremy Corbyn "incredible". Boris Johnson has said the Labour leader is worse than a "mutton-headed old mugwump".

But Corbyn prefers to see himself as "Monsieur Zen", it seems.

As he campaigned in Oxford, Corbyn reinforced his chilled-out credentials when he visited a play park and gently pushed the swings for the children of his party’s Oxford East parliamentary candidate, MEP Anneliese Dodds. Soon afterwards, he was asked by one supporter what to say to people thinking of voting tactically at next month’s general election.

"The Lib Dems went into coalition with the Conservatives in 2010, voted in the Health and Social Care Act, voted for the cuts in the Department for Work and Pensions budget, voted in student fee increases," he replied.

"So I really get - I never do abuse, I never get angry, I’m Monsieur Zen on these matters - but it does make me slightly irritated when I get lectures about the Lib Dems.

"We know what they did when they had a chance to do something different."

Corbyn's claim is likely to divide opinion among commentators. The Labour leader has previously said he is "angry and fed up" with six million people earning less than the living wage and he has been accused of losing his temper with media on more than one occasion.

But he has also been described by one leading political sketchwriter as sounding "like a yoga teacher on a meditation retreat in Mallorca who wanted everyone to stop being so stressed out".