If Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn had sung the national anthem he'd be a hypocrite

Mad as a lorry, isn't he, Jeremy Corbyn? He's 100% gaga. Watching him on TV the other day, it occurred to me that this demented Trot appears to be labouring under the impression that all's not well with the world. Seriously: nuts. If you took old Jezza seriously, you'd start to imagine the NHS wasn't well-funded. That housing was less than affordable. You'd imagine, like Jeremy imagines, bless - there was war and strife in the world, leading to a refugee crisis. Mad as a box of frogs.

To listen to Jezza, so rudely disrupting the nice, cosy political consensus we've come to know and love since the invention of new Labour, you'd almost begin to suspect workers' rights were under attack. That the banking system was screwing everyone except, well, bankers. That peace is better than war and that here, in our scepter'd isle, there are inequalities relating to health, gender, race and sexuality. Like I said: cuckoo.

Maybe it's the pressure of running a major political party that's sent Corbyn crazy. Look what it did to Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Fair enough, they'd been in charge a bit longer than 48 hours, but when practically every politician, economist and media pundit says you're mad, you must be. Poor old Jez: you are nuts and, yes, they are out to get you.

Here I must declare an interest. I've lived in Islington North for much of the past 30 years (not quite the sun-dried tomatoes and frappuccino paradise the media insinuates). Jeremy's my MP; I vote for him. I met him once, briefly, and he seemed nice. Another time, I had to write to him about the interminable stuff people write to their MPs about and he responded quickly and with due diligence.

Though I'm not a member of the Labour Party, my family are, going back generations; as my nan never tires of telling me, we were in it from the start. Equality. Freedom. Rights for women, for workers. So when Jeremy put his name forward, in the middle of the night a voice told me to pay my £3 and vote for him. And I did. And not even, like Toby Young, to destroy the Labour Party forever; in fact, rather the opposite.

I rather admired Jeremy for refusing to sing the national anthem during the Battle of Britain memorial service at St Paul's Cathedral. Why should he hypocritically mumble that dreadful dirge? He's a Republican, though he has said that's not a fight he's going to fight. It's the same with the white poppy. Do you really think that by refusing to pin a red one to his lapel he's sticking a finger up at our glorious dead? He isn't. He's a pacifist: look it up.

We don't see eye to eye on some subjects, me and Jez. For one thing, he's chairman of the Stop the War Coalition; some of whose number are, how can I put this, "logically challenged". Nor am I sure about leaving Nato, even if that nice Mr Putin says we can join his gang instead. But the thing about Jeremy is - he listens. He talks. (Mostly). He doesn't speak in perfect soundbites while carving the air before him with his hands like every other politician seems to do.

The whole women's carriage thing, for instance: just a suggestion, to provoke a debate. Unfortunately, that's not an approach that plays well to the press gallery. You're supposed to have it all worked out. Jeremy, I admit, probably doesn't have a solution to every one of the many problems facing our country, the big bad world. Nor does he pretend to. Yet he's being slammed by politicians and hacks who think they do have the answer. Despite the fact the exact same economic system didn't quite work out in 2007. Or in 1987. It's bound to work next time, isn't it?

Except - hang on - what was it that scientist said? "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." Einstein, I believe. But then - he was mad too, wasn't he?