“How can you have someone negotiating a Brexit deal that won’t face the leader of the opposition party? The only thing that would persuade me to vote Theresa May now is if she went head to head with him and showed she was a stronger leader.”

He says her failure to debate has come across as arrogance. “She’s had enough opportunity to face Corbyn. I don’t know why she thinks she has the right to decline these things.”

The question for Labour in Derby North – and across the country – is how many people like Clarke have been persuaded at the 11th hour to switch to Corbyn. Clarke himself acknowledges that many of his friends still aren’t convinced.

“I think a lot of people are undecided still. I spoke to one guy at work who said it’s the first time ever he’s not voting because he doesn’t trust either of them. He must be in his mid-forties; he’s been through a few votes.

“People will vote on who they like rather than what they’re saying. They’ll say Jeremy Corbyn looks scruffy and he likes manhole covers and doesn’t strike me as a strong person.”

Amy Heaps, 35, was pushing her newborn daughter Erin in a pram on Mickleover high street when BuzzFeed News spoke to her last month. She has also voted for all three main parties and said she’d probably vote Conservative. When asked why, she answered simply: “Jeremy Corbyn.”

She works as a sales executive, voted to leave the EU, and said she saw May as the safer leader. “I think Theresa May, for all her faults, is doing a good job,” she said.

With just 24 hours to go, Heaps is more – not less – convinced that she should vote Conservative. “I still plan on voting that way,” she says, “even more so after recent events and Corbyn’s likelihood to deal with that effectively without inviting the Islamic extremists round for tea, on his past history!”

She is also unfazed by the fact that May was forced to backtrack on the “dementia tax” announced in her party's manifesto. “I think they all U-turn on their policies – it’s just about figuring out who’s the least bad.”