HAS Jeremy Corbyn been given a fair crack of the whip by the press?

Readers of The Sun, Express or Daily Mail who watched his fairly assured performance in Monday evening’s Jeremy Paxman interview might have been surprised to find the Labour leader more calm and good-humoured than the rabid lefty portrayed by some of the national media.

However a lot of that good work was quickly undermined by a hapless performance on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour which was possibly even worse than the dreadful mess Diane Abbott got in to over policing numbers. 

Nevertheless, veteran BBC broadcaster David Dimbleby - who will host a debate between the Labour leader and Theresa May in York on Friday – reckons that right-wing bias and “lazy pessimism” in the British press has led to Mr Corbyn being treated unfairly.

There is some evidence to back up his claim.

A recent study by the London School of Economics showed more than 50 per cent of all newspaper articles and almost 70 per cent of opinion pieces that featured Mr Corbyn were either negative or antagonistic toward him.

Some of the attacks came from left-leaning papers which accused him of being too left-wing, unrealistic or unelectable.

As a political maverick Mr Corbyn could have expected that the establishment would try to discredit him but there is no doubt that some of the coverage has been misleading and at times nasty.

Mr Corbyn's Woman's Hour gaffe showed that he is more than capable of undermining his credibility himself without the right wing press labelling him the "Court Jezter" or suchlike. But on Monday evening when Paxman's accusation that Mrs May was: “A blow hard who collapses at the first sign of gunfire,” drew audible gasps from the studio audience it was a reminder that we are not used to hearing such strong words thrown at the Conservative leader.

Perhaps if we were we would be in the midst of a fairer, balanced and more democratic General Election.