Jeremy Corbyn told 13-year-old Nikki Lilly he enjoys wearing tracksuits in a relaxed interview aired yesterday on CBBC.

Lilly recently interviewed Theresa May, who talked about liking the costumes on Strictly Come Dancing and being shy as a child. The young vlogger has arteriovenous malformation, which manifests itself on her face.

The Labour leader talked about his teenage years, particularly the pets he kept. As LabourList readers may know, he has a cat named El Gato.

Unsurprisingly, Corbyn’s favourite subjects at school were History and English, and he admits he was “bad at Maths”. He says his secondary school practiced corporal punishment and he wasn’t made a prefect as he refused to be violent towards younger students.

In a quick-fire round of ‘this or that’, Corbyn chose Eastenders over Corrie, wedges over fries (“making chips from your own potatoes is hard work”) and tracksuits over jeans.

“When I go home every night I put my tracksuit on… You can do anything with your tracksuit, you can go out in it. It’s great,” Corbyn said.

He added: “Although people around here don’t like me going out in tracksuits. They said, ‘look if you’re the leader of the Labour Party, you can’t go out in your trakkies’.”

Nikki Lilly baked scones and shared them with the Labour leader, who in turn shared his famous homemade jam.