THE morning after the disastrous Channel 4 interview in which he failed to answer a straight question six times in a row, Jeremy Corbyn put on his shirt and jacket to meet the press again.

We’ve all had it, that feeling that you just don’t want to go to work, but go he did, flanked by Scottish deputy Richard Leonard.

READ MORE: Corbyn unaware who the Scottish Conservative deputy leader is

The press pack had been kept waiting outside Possilpark Parish Church for their chance to speak with Corbyn at an event arranged to highlight his opposition to “hostile” Home Office policies and, in particular, to meet with families threatened with eviction by housing contractor Serco.

Three and a half hours later, reporters finally got their chance.

And it lasted fewer than 10 minutes.

The plug was pulled after one reporter asked a question about Corbyn’s handling of the party’s ongoing anti-Semitism row following comments by Jackson Carlaw of the Tories.

Which is a shame really, given that the veteran MP will deliver the Alternative MacTaggart lecture at the Edinburgh Film and TV Festival today, with his keynote address set to “discuss how good journalism challenges the powerful and what is holding it back in the digital age of tech giants and unaccountable billionaires”.

Sitting underneath a banner reading “Jesus knows your name”, Corbyn certainly didn’t know Carlaw’s and turned to ask Leonard to fill him in.

If Leonard had had the chance to say that the senior Tory MSP represents a major swathe of Scotland’s Jewish population, it might have helped Corbyn frame his answer more sensitively.

But what was said is probably not going to convince critics that his knowledge of Scotland or its political framework is at even pub-quiz standard.

And it’s also unlikely to inspire confidence in his leadership on the row splitting his party.

Perhaps luckily for Labour, there were none to see the exchange between Corbyn and representatives of the country’s press – which, ahead of his Edinburgh speech, Corbyn has called “a cornerstone of a health democracy and society” – because it happened behind closed doors.

Waiting in the corridors of the kirk, older Labour activists on site to see the leader had been heard regaling younger members with vintage campaign stories involving heavyweights like Robin Cook – stories from the time before red rosettes became less common.

Meanwhile, the young activists expressed delight that they had come into contact with the man who would be PM.

And, through a set of glass double doors, Bob Doris, SNP MSP for Maryhill and Springburn, joined a Chinese community group in a Tai chi session.

Reporters looked on as they stood corralled in the corridor waiting on Corbyn to emerge from behind a door marked “Quiet Room”.

In there, he was meeting asylum seekers desperate for the official leader of the opposition to help raise their cases.

He slipped out without fanfare and when asked later, the group – all with complex cases and very different circumstances – said he had listened.

However, we will have to take their word for that, because that “strong, diverse and independent media” set to be praised in Corbyn’s speech today was not invited in.

Instead reporters wondered how many questions would be allowed, if any – after all, Channel 4’s Ciaran Jenkins had been allowed only one: does he honestly believe Britain will be better off outside the European Union?

Of course, he did ask that six times on the trot.

In the end, a handful of posers were allowed, but the biggest was unasked – what had the event achieved for Labour?