British politics has served up more than its fair share of absurdities in recent times. But the fact that Jeremy Corbyn has now completed a full year of suspension as a Labour MP, having led the party between 2015 and 2019, is in a league of its own. The indictment of Corbyn drawn up by his opponents is so preposterous that it poses a real challenge for anyone whose approach to political discussion is still based on logic and evidence.

From the vantage point of 2015, it would have come as no surprise to those familiar with Labour MPs such as Margaret Hodge or Ian Austin that they should be centrally involved in a scandal about racism. But nobody would seriously have expected them to be the chief accusers, pointing their fingers with great indignation at a man whose record of opposing racism is demonstrably superior to that of any Labour leader in modern times.

When you know what has actually happened in British politics over the past few years, the experience of reading bog-standard newspaper columns that discuss Corbyn and his movement is rather like poring over articles in the Weekly World News about alien abductions and Bigfoot sightings, but without the tacit understanding that this is all a bit of harmless fun.