David Dimbleby: Jeremy Corbyn has not had a fair deal at the hands of the press
"There is a lot of support in the country" for Corbyn, says the Question Time host as he prepares to anchor his tenth general election on the BBC
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is more popular than the media make him out to be and hasn't had a fair deal at the hands of the press, says Question Time host David Dimbleby.
“If the Conservative story is how Theresa May is the ‘brand leader’, the interesting thing is that a lot of Labour supporters really like and believe in the messages that Jeremy Corbyn is bringing across," says Dimbleby in an interview in the new issue of Radio Times magazine.
"It’s not his MPs in the House of Commons necessarily, but there is a lot of support in the country. And I don’t think anyone could say that Corbyn has had a fair deal at the hands of the press, in a way that the Labour Party did when it was more to the centre.”
Dimbleby is preparing to anchor the BBC's election night coverage for the tenth time on Thursday 8th June and, as Labour gain ground on the Tories and with the impact of UKIP, the Liberal Democrats and other parties still unclear, he believes there may still be some surprises in store.
“My own prediction is that, contrary to the skepticism and lazy pessimism of the newspapers and the British media, it’s going to be a really fascinating night, and it will drive home some messages about our political system and the political appeal of different parties that no amount of polling or reading the papers will tell us.”
Read the full interview with David Dimbleby in the new issue of Radio Times magazine, on sale now in shops and on iTunes
