Like any other man

Jeremy Corbyn has been attracting a lot of press coverage in the last few days. Which is somewhat new territory for him. He's been in politics for nearly four decades, but he's never been much of a media favourite, not even on television and radio, where the lack of humour makes him a somewhat unengaging character.

When he did attract press attention, it tended to be hostile - as indeed it is this week as well - and sometimes very hostile indeed. This, to take just one example, is a Daily Mirror editorial in 1984 describing him as:

a stupendous mind-bending idiot. A man so insensitive to the decent feelings of others as to be completely numb. He wouldn't understand why voters have drifted in their millions from supporting his party. He wouldn't know how difficult he and his kind make it for their leader to win those votes back.

Well, it's a point of view. It may or may not be worth noting that, six months before this was published, the Daily Mirror had been bought by Robert Maxwell.