Thank God we have the right-wing press to tell us what a disaster Jeremy Corbyn as PM would be

How else would we know about his unholy asteroid alliance, or similarity to Mugabe?

Jeremy Corbyn addresses over a thousand supporters at Middlesbrough Town Hall on August 18, 2015 (Getty Images)

They’ve changed their mind then, those Conservatives who thought it would be funny if Jeremy Corbyn became Labour leader. The Mail on Sunday has produced a special mini-novel about what Britain will look like under Corbyn – in which the whole of London is on fire, the police have fled, Isis is welcomed in and the Premier League has collapsed.

If he wins, they’ll inform us that his policy of extra cycle lanes will disrupt wildlife, leading to the evolution of giant two-headed hedgehogs that feed off human kidneys. And nationalising the gas companies will disturb gas atoms, causing them to swell up in confusion and make all our pets explode.

But that would be comforting, compared with the more extreme plans. Because the Mail also told us “Jeremy Corbyn welcomed the prospect of an asteroid ‘wiping out’ humanity.” Some people have criticised him for appearing on platforms with a member of Hamas. Even worse, I understand he’s spoken at meetings with the asteroid.

Corbyn may claim he only wanted to open a dialogue with the asteroid, but this asteroid has made no secret of its dreadful plans. After all, the dinosaurs tried this policy of appeasing asteroids, and ended up dying as a species, but Corbyn has learnt nothing from their experience because he’s a Marxist.

This is on top of his record of sitting near people who were anti-Semitic. No Conservative leader would ever speak alongside such a creature. Margaret Thatcher, for example, only befriended people such as General Augusto Pinochet, who murdered thousands regardless of whether they were Jews or Gentiles, because if there was one thing he couldn’t stand it was anti-Semitism.

Tony Blair’s supporters seem even more cross about a potential Labour leader meeting unpleasant characters from the Middle East, presumably because Corbyn didn’t have the sense to charge them £200,000 for his advice, the idiot.

The Daily Telegraph, which a few weeks ago led the jollity in calling for Tories to vote for Corbyn, this week had a front page headline: “Jeremy Corbyn’s plan to turn Britain into Zimbabwe.” The full details of the Corbyn-Mugabe-Hamas-Asteroid alliance are sketchy, but let’s hope they stop when they’ve turned us into Zimbabwe, because some reports say he’ll turn us into hunter-gatherers, except all the berries will be nationalised and the mammoths will have fled to avoid excessive rates of tax – so it will be even worse.

And if that’s not enough of a worry, now he’s proposed meeting women’s groups to discuss safety for women on public transport, which is exactly what led to hyper-inflation in Zimbabwe.

One of several possibilities he’ll consider is women-only carriages in trains, or as Corbyn’s opponents will claim: “NOW HE’LL FORCE ALL MEN TO HAVE A SEX CHANGE OR WALK TO WORK. SURGEONS WILL CARRY OUT OPERATIONS ON THE PLATFORM.”

The most puzzling side to the abuse thrown at him is that Labour’s senior figures join in with it. They all seem terrified that one of their members has inspired people, and that could be the next reason for banning people from voting in the leadership election. If you seem enthusiastic and optimistic about changing society, you’ll be told you “don’t share the aims and values of the Labour Party”, and you’ll only get a vote if you’re sufficiently miserable and respond to the question “Why do you support Labour?” by saying “Christ knows.”

Harriet Harman has called the people barred from voting “cheats”, although most have been excluded because it’s suspected they voted for a different party once before. A few months ago she launched the drive for registration and membership by saying she wanted to attract people who had “voted for other parties”. She forgot to add, “so we can call them cheats and ban them”.

It’s an interesting strategy, to announce that if you voted for a party other than Labour at any point before, you can’t support Labour now. If this was adopted by every party, it would save all the hassle of ever having another general election. Every five years, on election night, David Dimbleby would announce: “So here are the results, exactly the same as last time. Now back to the snooker.”

It’s even more confusing than that, because many people who have actually voted and campaigned for Labour have been barred as well. Whenever this is mentioned on radio or television, we’re told: “Labour couldn’t find anyone to defend their actions.” This is understandable as it’s summer and there’s nothing much going on in the Labour Party at the moment, so I suppose they’re all rambling in the Lake District.

Occasionally a statement will be made that “We have to ensure voters abide by our aims and values”, but no one offers a clue as to what these are. Maybe Harman has become a kung fu master, and if asked “What are these aims and values?” she says: “Ah, my child, you must wander many miles in the forest and look at many fish. Only when you return with your fingers round the Moon will you truly know our aims and values.”

The problem for Labour and Conservative leaders may be that the enthusiasm for Corbyn isn’t confined to people who consider themselves left wing. It’s a movement of those who feel the poor weren’t, if you study economics carefully, the people who caused the banking crash, so probably shouldn’t be the people asked to pay for it. This movement has been looking for a home for some time, finding one in Scotland and to some extent in the Greens elsewhere.

At least Andy Burnham makes some sense of it, which is why he’s suddenly declared his opposition to private railways and tuition fees, despite having earlier voted to keep them. Tomorrow he’ll grow a grey beard and buy a pushbike.

This movement is unlikely to go away, even if Labour rejects it as made up of outside agitators, by which they must mean “some of these people trying to vote aren’t people, they are walruses and lengths of hose and asteroids”.