This change in attitude is reflected in the renewed vigour with which sections of the press are highlighting Corbyn’s support for radical causes, the most significant of these being international rather than national. This may be surprising, considering his strong opposition to domestic austerity, but the fact is that Conservative analysts are only too well aware that, as the experience in Scotland showed, concentrating on the inevitability of austerity policies is already beginning to lose credibility. 

Better, therefore, to look at his support for potentially unpopular movements overseas, starting with Hamas and Hezbollah but taking in his stance on Trident, Nato, and defence in general.

This is certainly the current pattern, although it is not done in the expectation that it will affect his electoral chances within the Labour Party, since it is now assumed that he will win comfortably. Instead, it is part of a process that will develop and intensify in the coming months, but it does raise the question of whether Corbyn is as vulnerable as so many pundits suggest.

For a start, Corbyn actually has a record of being ahead of most political thinking on a number of issues, including the Iraq war and the use of torture. On the “talking to Sinn Fein” issue, it may seem controversial, but at the time he was saying what the government of the day was already doing behind the scenes. Similarly, Hamas may be considered a terrorist group but the criticism of Israel’s recent Gaza war goes well beyond the traditional left.

On wider issues, Trident, Nato and conflicts in the Middle East all come to mind, starting with the assumption that opposing Trident renewal is a vote loser. In reality that may have been the case a few years ago, but a new generation has emerged and it is far from clear that it is any longer a key issue. The idea that international standing depends on being able to kill five million people in 45 minutes has much less traction than it did, and the huge cost of a Trident replacement, at a time of supposed austerity, is another factor that will be easy for Corbyn to highlight.

Nato is an issue where public opinion may not be strong either way, but where withdrawal would actually be less popular than ditching Trident. But Corbyn has made it clear that such an issue would be a matter for discussion and debate, rather than early imposition of policy across the party.  It is more likely that retaining membership will prevail, but with a demand for a fundamental rethinking of Nato’s functions, especially after the disastrous decade-long involvement in Afghanistan.

On the Middle East, one would expect that the links with Hamas and Hezbollah would be worthy of governmental emphasis, but the mood in the country is actually uncertain and unpredictable. There is now a widespread view, which is developing into a consensus, that the Iraq war was wrong in almost every sense and this combines with a deep suspicion of further involvements of UK forces in Iraq beyond the current air war. 

Over all this, though, is the much bigger issue of whether Corbyn is behind or ahead of the times, and this may well decide his future as leader of the Labour Party.