Jeremy Corbyn plays it safe in Hastings

With a recent YouGov poll giving Labour a six-point-lead over the Conservatives, it’s little wonder that Jeremy Corbyn is keen to pitch his party as a government-in-waiting. In this vein, the Labour leader has been visiting Tory marginals on weekends.

On Saturday, Corbyn was in Hastings & Rye, where the Home Secretary clung onto her seat by the smallest of margins in the snap election:

‘Once a ‘safe Tory seat’, now a marginal, we will win Hastings & Rye at the next election.’

We took our campaign to Amber Rudd’s constituency. Once a “safe Tory seat”, now a marginal, we will win Hastings & Rye at the next election. pic.twitter.com/aIjLrmtDEd

— Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) July 7, 2017

But was Hastings & Rye really a ‘safe Tory seat’ until the Corbynistas arrived on the scene? In truth, the seat is hardly a Tory stronghold – it was held by Labour’s Michael Foster from 1997 to 2010 when Amber Rudd defied the odds and turned it blue with a narrow majority of 2,000. Mr