Corbyn mocked for claim his policies were right all along

JEREMY CORBYN has claimed that the Government’s response to the coronavirus outbreak proves that his stance going into the 2019 election had been “absolutely right”.

The Labour leader said his hard-left agenda in last December’s general election had been vindicated by the Treasury’s bailout measures.

However, Neil Coyle, Labour MP for Bermondsey and Old Southwark, said the claims made by his outgoing party leader were “nonsensical and absurd”.

Mr Corbyn said that the “amount of money that Government is now prepared to put in” to keep the economy afloat suggested Boris Johnson had adopted Labour’s policies on state expansion and public sector borrowing.

“I was denounced as somebody that wanted to spend more money than we could possibly afford, in order to right the social wrongs of this country,” he told the BBC.

“I didn’t think that it would take only three months for me to be proved absolutely right.” His claims echo his previous statement, made two days after taking Labour to its worst general election defeat since 1935, that he had, in fact, “won the argument”.

Hitting back last night, Mr Coyle said: “The public roundly rejected Corbyn in December. To try to use the coronavirus pandemic to claim he was right about spending levels is nonsensical and absurd.”

Last night, Labour revealed that it had scaled back the results of the leadership contest, with the release of live footage of the announcement no longer taking place. Instead, Mr Corbyn’s successor will be confirmed via the party’s social media accounts. The three contenders will be required to send a prerecorded victory speech to the party, with the winner’s being posted online when the result is confirmed.

Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats have suspended their leadership contest, leaving Sir Ed Davey as caretaker leader until May 2021. The party had been due to start the process of replacing Jo Swinson in May and announce a successor in July.