LABOUR supporters north of the Border must occasionally feel the same sense of marginalisation as TV’s "viewers in Scotland" once did. Occasionally, while the rest of the UK was treated to a Hollywood blockbuster, an announcer would say: “And for our viewers in Scotland it’s two back-to-back episodes of Weir’s Way.”

Thus, while Labour voters in England watch enthralled as Jeremy Corbyn reminds them what an authentic, campaigning Labour leader looks like their brethren in Scotland get a version so watered-down that its colours are barely distinguishable from Conservative true blue.

In this election in Scotland the two main opposition parties have chosen to wrap themselves in the Union flag. On one of them it slips on easily like a favourite old winter coat; a little frayed here and there but providing security and comfort. On the other, Scottish Labour, it’s about as comfortable as sackcloth.

One of the many unexpected consequences of Theresa May’s decision to call a snap election has been the renaissance of Corbyn. If she and her advisers hadn’t been so blinded by their own arrogance they might have seen it coming and paused. The carefully manufactured depictions of the Labour leader by the public school elite who run the BBC and the overwhelming majority of the UK’s newspapers were grotesque caricatures. The messages they conveyed were unsophisticated and unsubtle.

Corbyn was portrayed as a dangerous and radical upstart who embraced Britain’s enemies and didn’t get down on his knees quickly enough for passing royalty. When you read the, allegedly, left-leaning New Statesman these days you constantly find yourself checking that you haven’t picked up The Spectator by mistake.

“If Mr Corbyn loses on June 8, he should resign. The party will need to learn lessons from politicians such as Sadiq Khan in London and Andy Burnham in Manchester, who have shown how to win popular mandates.” A Labour Party which requires lessons from these two self-serving political opportunists would not be worthy of the name.

Corbyn won the Labour leadership by default and has since lost control of the party’s Westminster MPs. At one point so thick was the slew of leaks and private briefings against him emanating from these Blairites that it hinted at something dark and not a little satanic. The poor, wretched Labour Party, it seemed, thought they had elected a leader and instead got Rosemary’s Baby. There was never any corroborated substance to the tales of carnage being attributed to Corbyn; merely a shadowy implication that he was "incompetent" or "dictatorial" or "conniving". Meanwhile a pile of bodies began to rise outside his door comprising those who had been garrotted by his henchmen or those who had fallen on their swords rather than meet their inevitable fate.

It was all nonsense, of course, put up by the same establishment who gathered to denounce Scottish independence the last time their status, influence and ancient privileges were threatened. As well they might. For Corbyn as Prime Minister at the head of a radical, life-changing, axis-altering Labour government would indeed mightily threaten their gilded existences.

He was always going to thrive in this election. For the first time since he was elected leader he would be free to meet the country on his own terms without having to worry about where the next sword thrust to his back was coming from.

May’s snap election call must have chilled Labour’s anti-Corbyn backstabbers at Westminster to the bone. There they all were making plans on the back of three more years of superannuated comfort and expenses. Suddenly their languid days in the Commons bars plotting coups and wondering whose turn it was to brief their favourite Telegraph or Times journalist had come to an end. By jove, they’d had better all stop the baiting of their leader and concentrate on securing another five years of the high life.

Corbyn has blossomed in this campaign because modern elections are fast-moving events which stretch the resources of newspapers and broadcasters alike. Leaders, if they are up for the fight, move rapidly from city to city and village to village so that it becomes impossible for journalists to twist their words all the time. The electorate have thus been able to observe a man comfortable in his own skin and exuding the confidence of a man whose essential message hasn’t altered much over the past three decades. Contrary to the BBC reporter who dismissed his manifesto launch speech as “red in tooth and claw” it was nothing of the sort. It was a measured and costed programme of democratic reform aimed at reducing inequality and addressing unfairness.

“The economy is still rigged in favour of the rich and powerful,” he said. “When Labour wins there’ll be a reckoning for those who thought they could get away with asset-stripping our industry; crashing our economy through their greed and ripping off workers and consumers.” Only the rich and the powerful, the asset-strippers and the rip-off merchants would dismiss these words as “red in tooth and claw”. How many of them were among those who contributed almost £4m in donations to the Conservative Party in six days last month, 11 times as much as Labour?

The Labour leader wants to renationalise the Royal Mail, the energy industry and the rail networks, not because of adherence to a 1970s-style Old Labour doctrine but because of the obscene profiteering that has characterised these sectors since privatisation while the quality of service to the paying customer has reduced. Asking those who earn £80k and above to contribute more as a means of paying for investment in public services is hardly radical. Even the International Monetary Fund has encouraged countries to borrow more to invest in their infrastructures. And there will rarely be a better time with interest rates at record low figures.

As Corbyn has preached this message of responsible social democracy May has been floundering almost from the moment she denounced dark forces within the EU seeking to do down Britain. It takes a special kind of arrogance to call an election for the purposes of strengthening her hand in the Brexit negotiations without seeming to have the faintest clue about what her hard Brexit strategy will entail. All we can be certain of is that she doesn’t want those damned foreigners coming over here; using our services; destroying our way of life. The Europeans are simply agog that this seemingly intelligent woman thinks she can get advantageous trade deals with each of them while rejecting the most cherished tenets of the European Union, including free movement. It’s little wonder that she is fearful of exposing these huge gaps to public scrutiny.

Yet, despite Corbyn’s refreshing and dynamic campaign and May’s wretched one the odds still favour a Conservative majority on June 8, though it may be far less than the Prime Minister was hoping for. Her authority and competence have been grossly damaged while Corbyn’s position as Labour leader has been reinforced. You can only imagine what might have been achieved if he hadn’t been dogged at every turn by the careerists and charlatans in his own party.

And if the Conservatives scrape a tiny majority they’ll be able to thank the fecklessness and foolishness of the Scottish Labour Party for playing into their hands.