Labour leader says tending plants at his plot in north London would give him time to think

Jeremy Corbyn has said he will not give up his allotment if he becomes prime minister.

The Labour leader said he believed he would be able to fit in time for digging, planting and pruning around his busy schedule at No 10 and that working on the allotment would help him as prime minister by giving him “time to think”.

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Corbyn, a vegetarian, has long tended a plot in East Finchley, near his north London home, where he grows maize, beans and pumpkins as well as fruit to make jam.

Asked whether there was any part of him which would prefer to be on the allotment rather than in No 10, he told Channel 4 News: “It’s possible to do both because if you grow plants and look after your garden, it gives you time to think, it gives you a connection with the natural world and makes you stronger in everything else you do.”

He was asked to describe how he imagined it would feel to enter Downing Street as prime minister on 9 June, Corbyn said: “Very exciting, because we have a responsibility to do something about poverty, about division and about lost opportunity in our society. A government that changes the whole economic and social narrative in Britain – very, very exciting.”

Corbyn said Labour’s campaign was “going very well indeed”, adding: “The numbers of people coming out on the streets to help us, to help the Labour cause, is phenomenal.”