It’s JC and the sunshine band ■ Mark Aitken
Jeremy Corbyn received a rock star welcome yesterday when he went on stage at Glastonbury.
The Labour leader addressed a crowd estimated at nearly 100,000 at the legendary music festival yesterday afternoon.
Some music fans wore Corbyn face masks and T-shirts and other waved banners with his name on them.
Chants of “Oh, Jeremy Corbyn!” – to the tune of The White Stripes’ Seven Nation Army – broke out during performances across the vast site.
And some Glastonbury veterans reckoned the 68-year-old politician attracted the biggest audience there since the Rolling Stones in 2013.
He also attracted crowds when he served pints at the festival’s Solstice bar and mingled with fans in the Somerset sunshine.
The Labour leader, who last week overtook Theresa May for the first time in a poll asking who would be the best PM for Britain, appeared on the Pyramid Stage.
Wearing casual cream trousers andd a blue shirt, he said: “Politics is about the lives of all of us and the wonderful campaign I was proud to lead brought a lot of people back into politics because they believed there was something on offer for them.
“What was even more inspiring was the number of young people who got involved for the very first time me because they were fed-up with being g told they don’t matter and that their generation was going to pay more to get less in education, housing, health, h, pensions and everything else.
“Well, it didn’t quite work out like that hat and that politics that got out of the box ox is not going back in any box. We are demanding an achievement of someething very different in our society.”
Corbyn received a huge cheer when he criticised growing inequalityy between rich and poor, highlighted by the Grenfell Tower fire in the heart of London’s opulent Kensington area.
He said: “Is it right that so many people in our country have no home to live in and only a street to sleep on?
“Is it right so many people are frightened of where they live at the moment having seen the horrors of Grenfell Tower?
“Is it right that so many people live in such poverty in a society which has such riches? No it obviously isn’t.”
The Labour leader also threw down the gauntlet to May in his speech, saying: “We are ready for another election as soon as you like.”
Corbyn walked off to cheers arm in arm with festival founder Michael Eavis after introducing activist hip-hop duo Run The Jewels, who are vocal supporters of left-wing US politician Bernie Sanders.
The pair thanked him for his “inspiring words” as they began their set.