The most important thing about Jeremy Corbyn is what he symbolises to the tens of thousands of people who have joined the Labour party since he became leader. After years of soulless Blairite pragmatism without principles, Corbyn represents a return to conviction and hope for radical change. In the unlikely event that Corbyn were to lose this week, most of these new members would probably break ties with Labour, and return to disillusionment and a sense of impotence. I don’t think the numbers inspired by Corbyn are enough by a long shot to win an election; but it’s still a huge number of people, and their energy and conviction could be a crucial part of a broader election winning strategy.

But the fact that Corbyn is genuine, and has political views we might like, should not blind us to the fact that he has proved extremely bad at the practical skills of leadership. After many years of being a backbench rebel, he has not taken well to the business of putting out press statements, formulating soundbites, putting together a simple narrative that gives people a sense of the party’s positive vision, etc. Of course, for those of us who like Corbyn, this rejection of conventional media just increases his personal appeal. But I’m afraid in the real world these are things you need to do if you want to cut through to the vast proportion of the electorate who don’t follow lefty politics on social media, and get their news by catching the odd line on the television or radio news.

This is all well-documented in Owen Jones’ heartfelt expression of concern. For me two things summed up Corbyn’s public relations problem. Firstly his demand the day after the EU referendum to immediately trigger article 50. This was a big moment, an important statement, and he clearly hadn’t thought it through, as he now admits. Secondly, in his interview with Owen Jones, Corbyn was asked what he could do to appeal to older voters, for whom Labour is not popular. His immediate response was that older people should be invited into schools to meet young people. At this point I was screaming at my laptop.

And the polls bear out the PR failure. I believe that someone with Corbyn’s politics could cut through and win an election, especially in these post 2008 times when people are seeking radical alternatives. But the reality is that Corbyn has not been on course to do this. Even before the leadership challenge Labour were consistently behind in the polls (occasionally neck and neck, very occasionally a point ahead), and Labour lost seats at the local elections and did significantly worse than under Miliband at the same point in the electoral cycle. An opposition needs to be way ahead at this stage to have a shot at winning. Under Miliband Labour was ten points ahead of the Tories mid-parliament, and still went on to badly lose the election. And Corbyn has had the worst personal ratings of any opposition leader ever. Yes, there has been a media bias against Corbyn. But that’s what’s going to happen if you propose radical alternatives, which is precisely why a radical opposition leader needs to have a high level of skill and ingenuity, especially regarding her or his media strategy. My concerns with Corbyn are not about his politics but his abilities.

And so I’m left not knowing who to vote for. I don’t want to halt the growing people’s movement that Corbyn represents. But I don’t think flesh and blood Corbyn himself is very good at his job. In my ideal scenario, Corbyn would voluntarily hand over the leadership to Clive Lewis in the near future, thus securing the movement under more capable leadership. But unfortunately that option isn’t on the ballot paper. 26 hours left to make my mind up…