If Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn are both sincere, who should you fear the most?

Moderately inclined voters don’t need to worry about Labour’s radicalism as much as they think they do, because the reality of government will make Corbyn’s promises look insincere. But the prime minister may really mean some of those things he keeps having to apologise for saying

Could it be that when it comes to sincerity the electorate is getting it the wrong way around with the leaders of the two biggest parties?

Let’s start with Jezza. Say what you like about him but I think we can agree that the Labour leader is sincere about wanting to improve the lives of “the many”. And Jeremy Corbyn is also is sincere in his belief that his programme is the best way to go about that. The trouble is, it’s now so big, so all encompassing, so radical, that it worries moderate voters who might otherwise be inclined to back Labour in the “least worst option” stakes that this fairly dismal election race has become.

It’s the perception that he’s sincere about doing all of the things he’s promised – multiple nationalisations, huge increases in spending on just about everything, transforming the economy, shaking up the way companies are run, planting a gazillion trees, not to mention sorting out Brexit, don’t forget about that – that makes them nervous. They pay heed to questions such as: “How will you pay for it?” and “How on earth do you expect to get this all done without it collapsing under its own weight?”

Corbyn gives the impression that the dismantling of that festering sore can be done overnight. It can’t. And the realities of politics and government will prove that if and when he takes office. Remember that Thatcherism – a much nastier, but no less revolutionary project, pursued by a determined, ideologically committed group – took more than a decade to complete.

It’s safe to assume that something more modest will emerge because it will have to, and that’s before you even get to the Westminster realities Corbyn will face. In my political betting column earlier this week, I highlighted the surge in bets on a Labour majority. They were made up of small stakes at a big price (20/1 or more) which reflects the fact that the chances of it happening are extremely slim. Labour’s radical programme is going to look a lot less radical in the event of a hung parliament because, like it or not, it will have to work with other parties to keep the Tories at bay.

The net result is that moderately inclined voters don’t need to worry as much as they think they do, because reality will make some of Corbyn’s promises look insincere – however sincerely they were made.

With Johnson, what we have to worry about is that he may be sincere, or that at least one of the many visions of himself he has presented of himself is sincere. And if it is, that should scare people a lot more than it currently does.

At this point you may be thinking I’ve taken leave of my senses. Johnson is, after all, arguably the most deceitful politician this country has ever had the misfortune to witness. He is a bulls*****r par excellence, whose falsehoods over the course of the election campaign would, I imagine, rival Donald Trump’s were someone to run the numbers. His approach certainly seems to have been modelled on that of the US president, and his ties to Steve Bannon, one of the architects of the Trumpian takeover of the Republican Party, have been well documented.

The electorate, however, seems to have taken the view that this is all just “Boris being Boris” and in the end he’ll turn out to be the moderate one nation Tory he was as London’s mayor. But what if we take him at his word? Or rather, his words? What if the steady stream of ugly, hate-filled quotes from his Spectator and Daily Telegraph columns that have been publicised in recent days are sincere?

In the course of those writings he’s taken shots at working class people, single mothers, their offspring, black people, their offspring, women, Muslims. Rack it up and just about everyone who lives outside of his ultra-privileged milieu of posh white men has taken flak from him. He positively delights in punching down at those less fortunate than himself. A man of the people he is not.

Nor can these writings be put down to the immaturity of a young man after attention who, now he’s grown up, is, um, sorry for any offence caused? Is that the correct formulation? His Telegraph column calling Muslim women who choose to wear the burka “letter boxes” and “bank robbers” was written just last year, when he was an MP and in the midst of his portraying himself as Tory leader in waiting and future PM. Ditto his incendiary description of Theresa May’s Brexit deal as a “suicide vest”.

Add in his party’s plans to go after the courts for insisting it obeys the law, restrict voting rights through demanding photo ID, the unattributed threats by Tory sources against Channel 4... you see where I’m going with this.

What if those columns were written with a sincerity that Johnson doesn’t usually display? If so, then it is Johnson, and not the high ideals of Corbyn, whom moderate voters should fear.