WHAT do you get if you mix Reverend and the Makers, the Coral and the Libertines?

Jeremy Corbyn, apparently…

The Labour leader’s appearance at Tranmere Rovers’ Prenton Park on Saturday might have stunned crowds, even if Twitter’s finest had perpetuated the idea with hashtag gold such as #CantStandMayNow, but just as welcome a surprise was seeing Pete Doherty and Carl Barat performing in such harmonious unison.

The pair’s acrimonious fallouts have been well documented in the past, but it was clear from the moment the Libertines stepped on stage and Barat, fag in hand, embraced the enigmatic Doherty that the London rockers were ready to entertain.

One thing that has never been in doubt is their talent; golden voices, poetic lyrics and Barat’s ability to slip seamlessly between guitar and piano is backed up Gary Powell’s frenetic energy on drums – the shirtless New Yorker was left fist-pumping the Wirral Live crowd long after his band mates had disappeared back stage.

The Libertines are a festival band if ever there was one, and it is that ability to deliver their anthem-like big-hitting records that had the whole of Prenton Park – bar perhaps the Tranmere Rovers groundsman – revelling and rocking in riotous fashion as they rolled out classics such as Can’t Stand Me Now, What Katie Did and Don’t Look Back into the Sun.

It proved a fitting finale to what was a sun-drenched early evening with a good-natured crowd dancing and singing along to Reverend and the Makers, the Coral… and Corbyn.

No one does catchy melodies better than the local lads who began their careers by jamming away in Hoylake pubs some two decades ago.

Frontman James Skelly still has one of the most recognisable voices in the business, and the Coral still deliver signature tracks In the Morning and Dreaming of You in all their swayable, swingable, singalong glory.

Saturday's Wirral Live line-up certainly got my vote.