Lookers on may have already got the impression that many Labour members and supporters made their minds up a long time ago about which way to vote, and that not much is likely to change over the next few days.
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Mr Smith earlier said his “grave fear” is that the Labour Party will split unless Mr Corbyn is replaced as leader. But the Pontypridd MP was forced to defend the Lothians MSP when her name was met with jeers as he praised the “brilliant job” she had done in Scotland.
However that was met with some jeers from the crowd and he added: “I am really anxious that I am hearing a Labour audience laughing and jeering at the leader of Scottish Labour”.
Mr Smith used the hustings event in Glasgow to blame Mr Corbyn for the party finishing third behind the SNP and Conservatives in May’s Holyrood election.
Mr Corbyn’s shadow Scottish secretary Dave Anderson has urged Labour to consider an SNP coalition “if that is the price that we have to pay to prevent another rabid right-wing Tory government”.
“Under my leadership, Labour wouldn’t give the Tories a blank cheque”.
“I asked if he had a seat”, said David Rose, a retail fashion merchandiser who lives in Cockfosters, north London.
He said the public spat had helped to publicise Mr Corbyn’s plan to renationalise the railways, and attacked Mr Branson as a “tax exile” who was “laughing all the way to the bank”. “The only explanation I have been given is that this is something to do with an unidentified tweet I have posted”.
Corbyn, estranged from most of his MPs in parliament, but enjoying massive grassroots support, has responded by saying Labour, now the official opposition party in parliament, should work with the result of the June 23 vote.
“There are many people who have voted for, or even joined, the SNP who want to see numerous changes we want to implement”.
Jeremy Corbyn has expressed concern that some of his supporters have been “unfairly” barred from voting in the upcoming Labour leadership election.
Relations are also in deep freeze with the Labour deputy leader, Tom Watson, whom Corbyn supporters suspect of trying to rally support behind the scenes for Mr Smith.
Corbyn’s campaign team called the appeal decision wrong, “both legally and democratically”.
But Mr Smith went on: “The reason I think Jeremy can be so complacent and passive about this is that he’s happy with the result”.
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Addressing an audience at University College Hospital in London, Corbyn said: “Privatization and outsourcing don’t just erode the founding principles of the NHS, they’re actually a bad waste of resources”.
