Jeremy Corbyn supports Carlisle Labour campaigners in whistle-stop tour

The Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has been campaigning in CArlisle as part of a whistle-stop tour of Carlisle. He gave a speech to a large crowd of party supporters at the Royal Scot Pub in Morton, where he was met by Carlisle Labour Candidate Ruth Alcroft.

Mr Corbyn said that there are "more people out campaigning than 2017" and shrugged off suggestions that he is a hindrance to the Labour campaign in the north.

His visit comes on the day when it was leaked that his Shadow Health Secretary called the campaign “dire” and "lacklustre" outside urban areas. Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, was recorded without his knowledge by a Conservative friend.

His speech focused on education and protecting the NHS.

He described universal credit as a "cold and uncaring ethos", and said [we are] "the fifth richest country in the world, four thousand children in poverty, we have one hundred and thirty thousand children this Christmas not knowing if they've got a home for a few days or a few weeks ahead, we have half a million children going to school in a combination of over-sized classes and in some cases with under-qualified teachers. And then we have four million people waiting for operations with NHS hospitals and we have a mental health crisis and a social care crisis, with a Prime Minister who hides the truth when it's put in front of him in a picture, takes the mobile phone off somebody and sticks it in their pocket.

"Yes they're uncomfortable pictures, and I thank those papers for printing those uncomfortable pictures, but imagine what it's like to be that child, ill, wanting support. Or imagine what it's like being a parent to take your child to hospital and be told there really is no space. I do not blame the nurses, I do not blame the doctors, I do not blame the health service, I lame a government that is underfunding our NHS."

Mr Corbyn denied that he would make a deal with the SNP for a second Scottish independence referendum:

"We're not doing a deal with anybody, we're fighting this election to win it. She can put down any red line she likes, we are fighting this election to win it on the manifesto that we have put forward. If she wants to support the Tory party and its whole agenda of continuing austerity that's up to her."

Other candidates standing in the Carlisle constituency:

  • Julia Aglionby (Lib Dem)

  • John Stevenson (Con)

  • Fiona Mills (UKIP Make Brexit Happen)

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