Can you support Jeremy Corbyn without agreeing with him on anything?

I have never voted Labour, I am not a republican, I don’t support unilateral nuclear disarmament, I don’t think the IRA were freedom fighters, I don’t believe the Bank of England’s independence should be revoked and if I was around in the 80s I probably would have been a died-in-the wool Thatcherite.

And yet I like Jeremy Corbyn.

Six months ago I knew hardly anything about Corbyn, but like a lot of people from the right was hoping he would win the Labour leadership contest just to destroy the party’s chances of coming to power for a generation.

However somewhere during the campaign I came to a realisation that Britain needs Jeremy Corbyn.

In his refusal to respond to personal attacks, Corbyn has positioned himself as an unlikely warrior against the trivialisation and banalisation of British politics, something that benefits everyone.

While Lib Dem leader Tim Farron couldn’t resist a dig at David Cameron following the Piggate revelations, Corbyn issued the following response:

“The media treatment of any politician unsubstantiated allegations, be it David Cameron, me or anyone else is wrong. Too much of our media is obsessed with personality politics, obsessed with personal criticism of politicians and therefore detracting from very serious issues around housing, living standards, jobs or world peace.”

Unlike his predecessors, Corbyn has made a clear statement of intent to bog the Conservatives down in a rigorous debate on policy, or to put it another way, to do his job.

Where Ed Miliband played along with a politics of personal jibes, blissfully unaware that he was normally the butt of every joke, Corbyn has already seen where that path would lead with the exaggerated furore over his failure to sing the national anthem at the Battle of Britain memorial service, and has decided instead to try to set the narrative of the debate in much the same way as Tony Blair and Margaret Thatcher successfully did.

Whether Corbyn’s policies will be able to convince the electorate of course remains a doubt, but if he can emerge as the only candidate willing to actually have a debate on policy he may just re-engage a disillusioned British public.