Jeremy Corbyn has no idea how hard life is in Venezuela

And so Jeremy Corbyn has decided not to condemn the thugs who run Venezuela and instead would like us to recognise the regime’s ‘effective and serious’ attempts at reducing poverty.

Try telling that to my skeletally thin friend, Tyrone, who lives in a city in the Venezuelan Andes, almost in tears on skype. Ty is a student, aged 23, and has been living on nothing but potatoes for the past couple of weeks. Like millions of others he is desperate to leave the country but he does not have the money to buy his passport. It costs around 130,000 bolivars to obtain – in other words, around £9,900 at the official exchange rate (13.1 bolivars to the pound) or a snip at £7.70 at the black market rate (16,900 bolivars to the pound).

In Venezuela, you see, the minimum monthly wage is around 250,000 bs a month, including luncheon vouchers – in other words, an amazing £19,080 at the official rate or a measly £14 at the black market rate.