Caller explains why she thinks Jeremy Corbyn wasn't popular "north of the Watford gap"

14 December 2019, 08:43

Susanne, from Manchester, thought that Jeremy Corbyn was popular in Islington but that didn't translate to the north of the country.

Susanne, from Manchester, called in to talk about Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn.

On Boris Johnson, she said: "I think the people have quite underestimated him, I really do. I mean, I think he is a lot cleverer than people think he is, for a start. I just think the people in the north didn't believe Father Christmas and that's what I really believe."

By 'Father Christmas', she meant Jeremy Corbyn.

She explained: "I think normal people, what I call normal people, the population realised that it was just free gifts that they were never going to get. There's no such thing as a free ride."

Matt Stadlen asked Susanne what she made of the "crumbling of the red wall" in the Midlands and the north of England.

Susanne replied: "I'm not surprised because, first of all, Corbyn is not as popular as he thinks he is. He might be popular in Islington but he's certainly not popular north of the Watford gap, as he thought he was. That's the first thing."

Matt Stadlen asked why Corbyn couldn't cut through with working class people.

She said: "Because working class people go to work every day, they come home, they feed their families or they try to feed the families.

"They drive a little car, they go maybe on a holiday once a year. They have to live what we call a normal life. His politics would normal nationalising everything.

"I mean, the only free gift he ever gave was two weeks in Venezuela, that was the next step.

That would have been if we'd have had another week. But every day was another free gift or another free gift. People north of the Watford gaprealised that you can't do this on the shoestring."

Susanne said she has always been a Tory.