But Paddy Power are now paying out on bets made on Mr Corbyn succeeding Ed Miliband and beating early favourite Andy Burnham and frontbench rivals Yvette Cooper and Liz Kendall.
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Labour could get “absolutely hammered” at the next election if Jeremy Corbyn becomes leader, party grandee David Blunkett suggested this morning.
He said: “I’ve known Mr Corbyn for many years. He is a likeable man with deep convictions and a respect for others who have opposing views”.
But Mr Burnham warned there is a “real risk of division” following the increasingly bitter leadership contest and insisted he was the one candidate who could unite the party.
The appeal, in a speech in Manchester, follows former prime minister Gordon Brown’s passionate call for Labour not to become a “party of protest” instead of a credible electoral force.
As well as changing Labour to a neo Tory party, Blair took us into five wars, including the illegal Iraq war.
Green Party member Karl Leys says he is “pleasantly surprised” to see a left-wing candidate gaining support, but cautioned his own party against getting carried away.
Mr Blunkett cast doubt on whether a Burnham leadership would give a senior post to Mr Corbyn, a question that Mr Burnham has been unclear about.
He said: “It seems to me that Jeremy Corbyn is being vilified and attacked by the media and by the establishment simply because he is in public talking out on behalf of ordinary people”.
Brown, whose intervention during the Scottish independence referendum campaign last year was credited with helping rally his fellow Scots behind the United Kingdom, also implicitly criticised Corbyn’s global policies. “And I want Labour to be championing women’s equality again for the future”.
“I’m not going to be dropping out in this contest, I can’t stop making the case”.
She said: “Our data shows Yvette is beating Andy in nearly every region of the country”.
If he wins the very least the Labour party – and the nation – can expect is outstanding political drama.
MPs have been asked to check lists of new members to weed out bogus supporters with concerns over left-leaning non-Labour supporters signing up to vote for Jeremy Corbyn.
“For someone looking in from the outside, it implies that we’re not all that serious about ourselves as a party”.
Meanwhile, Scotland’s Daily Record has given its backing in the leadership race to left-winger Jeremy Corbyn.
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According to the new schedule, ballot papers will be sent out on Friday and the result will be announced at a special conference on 12 September.
