Earlier today, Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn launched his party’s General Election campaign bus by giving a speech to a pack of journalists. Ever since, the press community have been speaking out with their thoughts on the speech. Corbyn and current Prime Minister Theresa May have come under particular scrutiny in the British media recently as they have emerged as the frontrunners in the election – it’s basically between the two of them; no other party has a chance of winning, making this a much tenser and more focused election race already, especially since the damn thing is coming up so soon!
ITV’s Daniel Hewitt accuses Corbyn of ‘doubling down on his core vote’
Daniel Hewitt, a political correspondent for ITV News, tweeted a list of boilerplate, anti-1% phrases that Corbyn uses – “Many not the few, us v them, rich against the rest, greedy bankers, tax cheats, press barons” – before concluding that Corbyn is “doubling down on his core vote” as a campaign strategy.
Jennifer Williams from the Manchester Evening News tweeted Corbyn’s speech was in no way “designed to win over Tory voters or potential Tory voters,” as he should be trying to do in order to get the majority vote and therefore the government, and instead the speech simply “spoke to the core Labour electorate.”
Sam Coates of the Times tweeted that the speech was focused too much on “areas of overlap with Ed Miliband...rather than areas of difference.” James Tapsfield from the Daily Mail sent out his own tweet in response to Corbyn’s speech, saying it “confirms Corbyn’s ambitions are entirely within Labour’s core support.” But this is essential, since Labour are losing support with Corbyn’s controversial ideas, which some Labour figureheads have been publicly disagreeing with.
