General election: Corbyn says he expects to remain Labour leader into 'long-distant future'

Jeremy Corbyn has put “leadership” at the heart of his appeal for the 12 December general election, as he suggested that he expects to remain at the head of the Labour Party into the “long-distant future”.

The Labour chief’s comments appeared to be designed as a riposte to polling which regularly puts him significantly behind Boris Johnson on the issue of leadership.

He accused Conservatives of offering a style of government headed by “leaders who think they are above us all”.

And he said that this approach was laid bare in Jacob Rees-Mogg’s suggestion that Grenfell Tower victims lacked the “common sense” to flee the burning building.

Speaking on a campaign visit to Telford, he asked activists: “Do you want leaders who think they’re above us all, who think the rules they make for everyone else don’t apply to them?

“Or is good leadership really about listening as well as talking? I believe that good leadership is about compassion and understanding not ego.”

Challenged over whether his poor personal poll ratings were a drag on Labour’s chances of election victory and asked when he would hand over to a new Labour leader, the 70-year-old said: “I was elected to lead the party, I will carry on leading the party and, at some point, some time in the long-distant future, there will be a different leader of the party.”

Mr Corbyn added: “I lead the party and I’m proud to do so. I have been elected twice to lead this party and I spend my whole time travelling around the country campaigning for this party.”

He declined to respond to prime minister Boris Johnson’s and comparison of him to Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.

“I don’t do personal abuse,” said Mr Corbyn. “When personal abuse comes through, they go low, I go high. They go lower, we go higher. We are not indulging in that game.”

Mr Corbyn did not mention Mr Rees-Mogg by name in his speech on the day of the dissolution of parliament.

But in an attack on the Conservatives, he said: “They shamefully seem to think the victims of the Grenfell fire died because they didn’t have the common sense to save themselves.

“I’ll tell you what’s common sense:

“Don’t put flammable cladding on people’s homes. That’s common sense.

“Don’t close fire stations and don’t cut fire fighters. That’s common sense.

“And don’t ignore residents when they tell you their home is a death trap.

“What this all comes back to is what I was talking about earlier: leadership.

In a clear attempt to make a merit of the contrast between his and Johnson’s styles, Corbyn said: : “My view of leadership is different from the one people are used to.

“Yes I believe leaders should have clear principles that people can trust, and the strength and commitment not to be driven off course.

“You have to stand for something.

“But leaders must also trust others to play their part.

“Think of it like this: a good leader doesn’t just barge through a door and let it swing back in the faces of those following behind.

“A good leader holds open the door for others to walk through.”

Mr Corbyn again indicated that Labour’s manifesto may not include the policy to abolish private schools such as Eton passed at the party’s conference in the autumn.

The Labour leader said that only “some” of the policies agreed at conference would make it into the manifesto at a “Clause 5” meeting to finalise the election platform. He indicated the policy on private schools would stop short of abolition, saying they should expect to be asked “to pay tax rather than get charitable status”.