Caroline Flint (who I think would have made a great Labour leader) is interviewed in today’s Times. Here’s an excerpt:
“She’s fond of Corbyn personally, recalling with amusement how excited he got visiting a Doncaster green gas farm that turned silage into energy. “But it’s very hard on the doorstep when people are saying to you, ‘It’s not about you, Caroline. I want you as MP, but I don’t want that man being prime minister. And if I vote for you, I’m helping him.’ ”
Flint says Jess Phillips’ suggestion that she will fight to rejoin the EU is ‘ridiculous’
Corbyn’s perceived lack of patriotism played badly with South Yorkshire’s many families with army or RAF connections. Also, she says, Labour’s manifesto, “which offered free dental, free transport, free tuition fees, free broadband, free everything”, was ludicrous. “People here are savvy; they’re used to managing money. They know you can’t have all your Sundays at once. They felt they were being treated like idiots. And a lot of them felt they’d been already called idiots for voting Leave.”