FROM television dance programme contestants with two left feet to hapless Olympic ski jumpers, we Brits love an underdog.

After apparent no hopers, such as Farage and Trump, have gone on to score shock victories, is it possible for Jeremy Corbyn to add his name to the pantheon of political dark horse candidates who proved pollsters wrong?

Launching his election campaign the Labour leader stressed his outsider status, vowing to “overturn the rigged system” attacking the “cosy cartel” that runs British politics and insisting his party could defy “experts”.

This kind of anti-establishment rhetoric worked for the Trump and Brexit campaigns.

Labour strategists are clearly appropriating Vote Leave-style language to turn their leader’s underdog status – written off by Westminster and much of the media – to their advantage.

Mr Corbyn warned reporters not to dismiss his chances of victory, as he said they had done during the 2015 leadership contest. This was a fair point. He was a 200/1 outsider at the start of that campaign who went on to trounce his opponents, but the 2015 populist wave that swept him to power feels like a lifetime ago.

When solid Labour figures, such as MPs Tom Blenkinsop and Iain Wright, are bailing out, perhaps fearful of embarrassing defeats in June, and seats in Darlington and Bishop Auckland look vulnerable, the challenge facing the party looks insurmountable.

Key issues in the campaign should be health and social care, tackling child poverty and improving job prospects – all matters on which Labour polls strongly. But the emboldened Conservatives, backed by national newspapers which will savage Mr Corbyn as they did Michael Foot and Neil Kinnock before him, will keep the focus on the leader’s perceived inadequacies and his fractured party.

If Labour wins in June it might well be the most unlikely underdog victory of them all.