I was reprimanded this week by a man writing in telling me to grow up.

Have you been speaking to my parents, Sir?

I fear so. (I’m afraid their efforts in this regard haven’t worked either).

So, I am going to shock everyone to the core by revealing that I am in fact delighted that Jeremy Corbyn has been elected as leader of the Labour Party.

Calm down, Dad. I know he’s appalling (they say). I mean according to the Daily Mail (and who am I to doubt the balance of their journalism?), he is a ‘beardy prof’, ‘Marxist throwback’, ‘Sinn Fein sympathiser’ who ‘didn’t sing God Save the Queen’ – although I’m actually rather glad he didn’t do the latter since, being a lifelong Republican, that would have also made him a ‘stinking hypocrite’.

Reading the right wing press’ daily attacks on Corbyn is becoming quite the sport for those of us interested in the study of the media.

The Government’s education agenda in recent years has demonstrated a distinct disapproval for ‘media studies’ as an academic subject, incidentally. Funny that.

But anyhow, a good daily trawl of the nationals would have made for a fantastic A-level lesson in my teaching days, because all pretence of journalistic impartiality appears to have been almost entirely abandoned where Corbyn is concerned.

Even the good old BBC, when reporting on Corbyn’s victory in the Labour leadership contest on Saturday, described him as a ‘veteran left winger’, making me wonder if the next time they mention David Cameron in a story, they plan to refer to him as a ‘middle aged rightie’?

Just why does the word ‘rightie’ not exist in political reporting? And, bearing in mind the alliterative delights of ‘loony leftie’, what fun we could have with it! Raunchy rightie? Racy rightie? Rigorous attention to detail rightie? Sorry, I know I am being childish again.

But child that I am, I’m just going to come out and admit that I do like a man who – radically – appears to actually believe in the things he says, whether I agree with him or not.

And I especially like there being someone in opposition who actually is in opposition, rather than someone who spends the majority of their time convincing nobody but their mum that they really are completely different to the other lot.

As any historian of political thought will tell you, with things swinging increasingly to the right as they have of late, Jeremy Corbyn had to happen.

For every thesis, there must be an antithesis before any kind of helpful synthesis can be achieved.

And in an age of painful political apathy and ennui, it is good to have a bit of old fashioned left wing fury being unleashed now and again to keep our current Government on its toes.

Whatever side of the fence you sit on, politics, like life, is always greatly enhanced by having to justify oneself to a person who is having none of it. So, for a lifetime of passionate political debate, I should probably at this point say, thanks, Dad.