Corbyn ‘held back’ by aides in angry clash with journalist

lost his temper with a reporter when asked whether he was “running away” from answering questions about his beleaguered leadership.

A video published on the internet shows the television reporter asking: “Mr Corbyn, when are you going to stand down? How much longer can you stay?” Another asks: “Are you running away from the media?”

Mr Corbyn then appears to move in the journalist’s direction, saying: “If you want to arrange an interview, speak to my press office. Thank you.”

An aide then apparently restrains the Labour leader, saying to him: “Jeremy, please don’t, please don’t.”

Julian Andrews, one of the photographers who witnessed the altercation, said: “There were three or four camera crews and a handful of photographers. Everyone had been told that he wasn’t answering questions. He was walking back to his car when it happened.

“The reporter asked him if he was running away and he completely fired up. He swung around and made his way to confront her but two or three aides carried him away. He was really p––––– off.” One Labour Party source admitted that Mr Corbyn “was frustrated, he had enough” of repeated questions at the event, which was basically “a gazebo on Highbury Fields”.

One television journalist had allegedly put the camera “in his face and I think he just has had enough of being pushed around”.

The flashpoint came after the Labour leader reportedly arrived 10 minutes late at a Somme centenary on Friday, used his mobile phone, and then left before the end of the service.

Mr Corbyn, whose opposition to war is well documented, is understood not to have been on the guest list of the Somme Association event in France.

Observers said he arrived 10 minutes after the ceremony began. One told the

“He slipped up the side of the main body of people who were there and stood for part of the service. He made his way out before the commemoration was over.”

Mr Corbyn’s spokesman said Mr Corbyn had attended a vigil at Westminster Abbey and then the official commemoration at Thiepval. He said: “Following all those commitments he was keen personally to go to the Ulster Memorial Tower, where was a memorial going on.

“He stood respectfully at the back for a few minutes and then had to leave because it was not in his itinerary. He did that as an additional mark of respect.

“He then slipped away, having stood respectfully at the back and he did not use his mobile phone until he was on a public road away from the memorial.”

The series of rows comes after a week in which relations between Mr Corbyn’s team and MPs hit a new low.

At a rally last week, John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, infuriated many Labour MPs by encouraging activists to protest outside the offices of MPs who oppose Mr Corbyn. When he returned to Parliament,

understands he over his comments.

One MP, referring to the killing of Jo Cox outside her constituency surgery last month, told him: “After we’ve just lost our colleague, my family are already worried about me every time I go into the office. How can you say it’s OK to take this to MPs’ doors?”

Mr McDonnell replied to say he was not encouraging violence, but the MP told him: “You can –––– off.” He reportedly replied: “No, you can –––– off.”

Meanwhile, shadow cabinet ministers who tried to resign last week told

that they had struggled to get through on the telephone to do so.

One Labour source said: “There are lots of delegations trying to get time with him, but he is resolutely refusing was there confronted Jeremy Corbyn, above centre, is restrained as an ITN journalist, far right, asks him if he is ‘running away’ at a rally in his north London constituency. Left, he is led off after the incident