Polite grey man Jeremy Corbyn would unleash a revolution

Jeremy Corbyn could be a local ­insurance salesman pitching for new clients. Appearances deceive.

Jeremy Corbyn at the Labour launch at the University of Wolverhampton, Telford Campus, on Wednesday. Picture: Getty Images

Jeremy Corbyn strides into the university room to a standing ovation from 150 Labour Party members. It is midweek, in the middle of the day and there is no elaborate musical fanfare or hi-tech razzamatazz.

Just Corbyn, more smartly dressed than he used to be, on Wednesday in a dark blue suit and red tie, standing before a red backboard that pens the election slogan “For the Many, Not the Few’’.

But it could be the local ­insurance salesman pitching for new clients, not the trademark ­Labour campaign launch to spearhead the most dramatic upheavals for the country.

This is a curiously intimate and low-pitched gathering of the faithful in just six rows of seats, mostly working class retirees and long serving Labour members drawn from an area where Corbyn grew up and is held by a majority of several hundred by the Conservative party. Where are the students and grassroot Momentum supporters who paid their three quid en masse a few years back to vote Corbyn into the leadership and swing the party to the left?

Corbyn starts slowly, perhaps picking up the energy levels of the dreary grey sky outside, adjusting his glasses to read the teleprompter and look down the lens at the television cameras at the back of the room. His audience is exceedingly nice; he is exceedingly polite.

He wants to be kind and considerate and do leadership in a different collegiate way. His delivery is dour to the point of boring — only once did a chant of “not our NHS’’ bounce around the room. Yet Corbyn and shadow chancellor John McDonnell also want to usher in a economic far-left revolution.

Boris Johnson launches the Tory campaign at Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre on Wednesday. Picture: Getty Images

Two retired teachers, Crispin Barker, a long-term Labour member, and Simon Hoyle, a Labour voter, are nonetheless impressed.

Hoyle said Corbyn’s speech had focused on the impact of the years of Tory austerity, including a planned downgrade of the local Telford hospital to emergencies only. He also said Corbyn had filled in the Brexit jigsaw, of striking the best deal possible with Brussels and then putting that to the people in a referendum alongside Remain. “This is what I have been waiting for. It is the only part of the Labour Party jigsaw that I have not had … but it’s there now,’’ Hoyle said.

Corbyn says he will open the doors to let others through: ­although deputy Tom Watson just hours later slams the door shut on the Labour Party and ­resigns — a timely announcement smack bang in the middle of the Tory launch 40 minutes down the road in Birmingham.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson too has had a frontbencher resign, and Alun Cairns was meant to be the Conservative leading the ­attack on Labour’s northern Welsh constituencies.

It has been a rocky campaign opener for both major parties.

Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson — confidently spruiking she will be the next prime minister on the back of her party’s platform to cancel Brexit altogether — launched her campaign in a ­London coffee shop. The Brexit Party had its launch a few days ago and leader Nigel Farage is still trying to get Johnson to enter a non-aggression pact in tight seats so as not to split the Leave vote.

The Tories were the last of the day to launch and Johnson was typically energetic, enthusiastic and optimistic before a crowd of young Tory members who waved placards to Get Brexit Done and remind voters of the 20000 extra police promised to tackle crime.

His launch was about Brexit, how the Tories would spread hope and opportunity, and demonising Corbyn’s indecisiveness and the Labour plunder on taxes.

“The Labour Party always runs out of other people’s money’’ Johnson thundered. “It will happen again, and it will happen very soon under this lot.”

And returning to Corbyn’s Brexit dither and delay, Johnson said witheringly:

“Is he for leave or for remain, in or out do you now, is he forwards or backwards. The only bit of flotsam of intelligence to emerge from the Bermuda triangle of ­Labour’s Brexit policy is that they are preparing a new deal and will then campaign against it months later with all the futility of the suicidal knights in Monty Python.’’

Day one has illuminated the opening gambits of the parties: the Tories want to talk about Brexit and Labour wants to talk about anything but.