A branch of Momentum, the pro-Jeremy Corbyn grassroots left-wing campaign organisation, has encouraged its supporters to place bets on Labour winning the election in order to change the odds.
The group’s Hackney branch has also encouraged members to bombard the BBC with complaints if they believe the broadcaster is being biased against Corbyn.
“The odds against Labour, but if enough of us bet a tenner on Labour to get the most seats or Corbyn to be the next PM, the odds will shorten and the narrative will begin to change,” the Momentum group said on its website.
Ladbrokes have the odds of the Conservative Party winning the most seats at 1/20. While the bookmaker has the chances of Labour winning at 12/1.
Asked about the apparent Conservative’s double-digit poll lead, Corbyn yesterday said the election was not a “foregone conclusion” and told reporters to remember his unexpected Labour leadership victory.
“In 2015, almost exactly two years ago, I was given 200-1 as an outside chance,” he said.
Providing a link to the BBC’s complaints form, Momentum Hackney added: “We expect that the mainstream media will be relentlessly anti-Labour and anti-Corbyn. But we can challenge this.
“A phonecall will have more impact than an email). If you use social media, you can also call it out there. Twitter is a bubble but using a programme’s hashtag can break out of that bubble.
“We expect that the mainstream media will be relentlessly anti-Labour and anti-Corbyn. But we can challenge this.”
A Momentum spokesperson said: “Activists from Hackney Momentum made a light-hearted suggestion that putting £10 on Labour would help shift the media narrative and encourage reporting on actual policies, to enable voters to make an informed decision on 8th June.”
BBC Radio 4 Today programme presenter Nick Robinson was yesterday targeted on Twitter for his reporting on Corbyn, with this tweet leading to complaints of bias.
Robinson defended his comment and said he did not think Corbyn himself wout “disagree with a word” of it.
Other BBC reporters have also responded to accusations that the broadcaster is biased against Corbyn.
Ken Loach, the film director and leading Corbyn supporter has also in the past encouraged people to call the BBC to complain about what he said was the broadcaster’s bias against the Labour leader.
He said the broadcaster had the “pretense of objectivity” but was in fact a “propaganda” arm of the state. “The BBC is not some objective chronicler of our time – it is an arm of the state,” he said.