Jeremy Corbyn says Labour government would ‘deliver for people’

Labour is the “party of the people that intends to deliver for people”, said leader Jeremy Corbyn as he revealed to supporters that £1 million had been raised in public donations for its General Election campaign.

Mr Corbyn rounded off a day of campaigning in the North West with a rally at Manchester’s O2 Apollo venue on Thursday evening.

He told a rapturous audience that an “important landmark” had been achieved since they agreed to the General Election last week thanks to average donations of £26.

Mr Corbyn said: “A few months ago at party conference I said I promised you a people-powered election campaign the like of which this country had never seen before and I saw some people in the audience looking a bit sceptical.

“I want to tell you that this afternoon we passed a very important landmark.

“We have raised from public donations for our election campaign and to take the fight to every town, every village, every city all over this country – £1 million.

“And to raise this money when we agreed to the election last Tuesday I didn’t jump in a taxi and go to the City of London to see some hedge fund managers.”

He quipped: “I was going to call all my billionaire friends until I realised I didn’t have any.”

Mr Corbyn went on: “Our supporters, our members have been very generous. And I feel proud of £26 being donated to our campaign by people who believe in what we believe in than somebody giving money because they have got large amounts of money in order to try and buy influence into our political system.

“We are the party of the people and we are a party that intends to deliver for people in this election.”

He concluded: “We have got five weeks to the election, we have got five weeks to get our message out there.

“I don’t think we are going to get much help from the printed media, I believe some of them are quite hostile.

“We have a different thing to do.

“That is to go out and discuss with people what they want, discuss with people the relevance of what our party and our movement is saying.

“Discuss with them how they will be empowered by a Labour government being elected.”

He urged his supporters to help win the election by taking out a message of “unity, optimism and hope”.