The other evening I watched an interview on the news with Jeremy Corbyn. He came to life only when tetchily asking the journalist to please let him finish his answer, and I could not help wonder why so many millions of party members place such faith in him. Allowed to speak, he repeated a mantra we have heard almost every time he is in front of a microphone. In the face of criticisms ranging from his style of leadership to his ineffectual disapproval of intimidation within the party, he remained blank-eyed.

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Much praise has been heaped upon Mr Corbyn in recent weeks, and much scorn on his detractors. The greater the clamour from disaffected Labour MPs for him to step down, the more adoring the response of his supporters. No wonder former shadow cabinet members look so bemused. Mr Corbyn’s unstoppable popularity and the blind trust he inspires in his acolytes defies logic and facts. It is like watching an experiment in a chemistry lab, where pouring combustible chemicals together which ought to produce an explosion results only in an ever deepening miasma of love.

Love, that is, between those who see, hear and speak no evil of him. For party members who have dared voice concerns or doubts, the cloud over their heads is more like mustard gas. No matter how unshakeable Corbyn’s socialist ideology, no matter how much one might admire his concern for the disadvantaged or applaud his stance on nuclear weapons, during his leadership a poisonous mood of unease, anxiety, and outright fear has taken root within the Labour Party. There has been nothing as unsettling as this in British politics since the days of Mosley’s blackshirts.

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It seems incredible that even after more than two-thirds of his women MPs have asked him to take “swift and tangible” action against the bullying in his camp, he has done nothing except repeat his condemnation of such behaviour. The tone and demeanour in which he does this is so bland and toothless, it reminds you of exhausted middle-class parents trying to reason with their little darling while he or she pulls the wings off a fly, or of Joyce Grenfell’s limp refrain: “George...don’t do that.”

The letter Mr Corbyn received, with more than 40 signatures, complained of the “extremely worrying trend of escalating abuse and hostility towards MPs”, and asked him to exhort his people not to hold rallies or encourage members to stage demonstrations outside MPs’ offices or homes. When former shadow Scottish Secretary Ian Murray’s Edinburgh office was the locus for a pro-Corbyn demonstration last month, his staff were reportedly terrified. No surprise, then, that the signatories of the letter say staff in some constituency offices are suffering “severe distress”. Angela Eagle, who dared challenge his leadership and whose office window was smashed by a brick, has suggested Mr Corbyn is “stirring” the trouble, and has encouraged a “permissive environment” to flourish.

No shrinking violet, Ms Eagle is so rattled by the threats she has received she has stopped holding open surgeries. Indeed, none of the women who signed the letter is a scaredy cat. No politician could win their seat if they were. So you would think that when, in an unprecedented show of distress, they band together to ask for help, they should be heard. But to judge by Mr Corbyn’s weary, rehearsed rhetoric – “I have made it clear that harassment and abusive language have absolutely no place in our political discourse” – they won’t get much joy from that quarter. Similarly, when anti-semitic insults were directed at a female Jewish MP at a meeting over which Mr Corbyn was presiding, he made no protest. The woman left in tears, and Mr Corbyn was later seen smiling and chatting with her abuser. In other circumstances this might be called collusion.

Another of Mr Corbyn’s unhelpful replies to safety concerns is that he also has been sent unpleasant messages. There are bampots, he implies, on every wing of the party, and beyond. Which undoubtedly is the case. But when Kevin McKeever, a PR in a firm accused by Mr Corbyn’s inner circle of orchestrating the attempted coup against him received a letter telling him he would be “Coxed” for his treachery, referring to the recent murder of MP Jo Cox, this is surely new territory. If union leader Len McCluskey is right in believing MI5 has been trying to foment trouble, it is indicative of how effective their tactics are. And if he is wrong, then it is even more sinister to think the people throwing bricks, sending rape and death threats, and gathering outside MPs’ offices are staunch defenders of Mr Corbyn. If Labour’s leader truly believes his own statements about the way in which politics should be conducted – and I begin to have my doubts – then his words are as effective at controlling the rabid element in the party as a liquorice leash on a Rottweiler.

Even a hint of violence can be unsettling. Aggressive language can be frightening, body language even more so. A man can unnerve a woman simply by walking too close behind her, or allowing his eyes to hold hers, with malicious meaning. Naturally, it is possible to misinterpret someone’s intentions, especially when tensions are heightened. Perhaps some of the cases of harassment of which Mr Corbyn’s supporters stand accused were not deliberate. Unwisely chosen words, raised voices, table thumping can all generate a greater sense of malignity than intended. What is not in doubt, however, is the dramatic escalation in hostile rhetoric and open threats, creating a climate in which people are feeling vulnerable and anxious. That alone ought to be causing Mr Corbyn sleepless nights. He should be making it a priority to stamp out such acts and attitudes, by finding, rebuking, punishing or expelling those responsible for them. If he does not do so there is only one conclusion: that he does not want to, and he is not as sweet-natured or kindly as he would have us believe.

Of the many astonishing twists and turns during Westminster’s midsummer nightmare, the nastiness that has erupted in the Labour Party was perhaps the least predictable. Under the command of the most fanatical but mild-mannered figurehead the party has ever known, a man who never hurls insults, and refuses to engage in the baiting in the House of Commons bear-pit, Labour is nevertheless in danger of falling into the hands of bullies and thugs. Rather than presiding over a party that is as unexcitable as himself, Mr Corbyn is afloat on a swamp of ill-feeling, much of it, by commission or omission, of his own making. Who now would feel safe standing to speak at a meeting where their views do not chime with the Corbynistas?

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One of the ironies of political power is that even those who espouse pacifism and politeness need, when required, to be authoritarian, uncompromising and steely. A man too wet, weak or unconcerned, who cannot or will not command his lieutenants and bring them to heel, risks becoming the biggest troublemaker of all. Which, of course, may be what he intended all along.