I love campaigning, Jeremy tells the world as he props his chin up gloomily with one hand

After his calamitous Tuesday, Jeremy Corbyn was in trouble. Sending underlings to defend him on the airwaves didn’t seem to be helping.

Yesterday morning, Labour’s Richard Burgon tried to reassure voters by insisting that Mr Corbyn had “signed numerous Early Day Motions against the scourge of anti-semitism”.

An Early Day Motion, in case you’re wondering, is an obscure parliamentary custom that, in terms of significance, is one rung above a passive-aggressive Post-it note stuck to the door of a communal fridge, and one rung below a letter to the local paper about graffiti on a park bin.

Other Early Day Motions signed by Mr Corbyn include a plea to Mcdonald’s not to increase the size of the Big Mac, and the assertion that “Arsenal is the best football team in the world”.

What the Labour leader needed was to change the subject. Thankfully, he had something up his sleeve. Journalists were summoned to Westminster for what they were told would be “a major statement”.

Accompanied by Barry Gardiner, his spokesman on international trade, Mr Corbyn strode into the room, clutching a black briefcase. From it, he produced a thumping bundle of paperwork, and held it grimly aloft.

The papers summarised preparatory meetings between US and UK trade officials, going back two years. Or as Mr Corbyn put it, somewhat more dramatically: they were “secret reports” which proved that the Tories would put the NHS “up for sale” to Donald Trump. This was “not only a plot against our NHS”, but “a plot against our country”. A stack of photocopies as thick as a phone book was duly presented to each journalist. This, surely, was the campaign game-changer that Mr Corbyn had been crying out for.

Then again, maybe not. Mr Corbyn always insists on taking questions from three journalists at a time. The first journalist, from Sky, naturally asked about the papers. Inconveniently for Mr Corbyn, however, she also asked a second question: why hadn’t he apologised to the Jewish community?

Then, even more inconveniently, a second journalist – ITN’S Libby Wiener – asked about anti-semitism, too.

For Mr Gardiner, this was too much.

It wasn’t supposed to be going like this. “Libby,” he snapped, “do you have a question about the issue we’re actually discussing today, or was that just an opportune moment to get a dig in about something else?”

As a matter of fact, Ms Wiener did have a question about the papers. She just happened to ask about antisemitism first. The third journalist was the BBC’S Laura Kuenssberg. She asked a question about the papers – and then a second question, about anti-semitism.

I glanced across at Mr Corbyn. He sat with his chin propped gloomily on one hand.

A little later, a journalist from the Mirror asked Mr Corbyn whether Tuesday had been the worst day of his campaign. “I love campaigning,” replied Mr Corbyn. “And yesterday was another day I loved.” He couldn’t have sounded more glum.