Martin Amis attacks Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn as 'undereducated' and 'humourless'

Novelist Martin Amis has launched a blistering attack on Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, saying he was not fit to be Labour leader because of his "undereducated", "humourless", "slow-minded rigidity" and called him "essentially incurious about anything beyond his immediate sphere".

Writing in the Sunday Times, Mr Amis warned that Mr Corbyn’s leadership would leave the Labour party "undeserving of a single vote".

The left-wing author condemns the Labour leader for parroting "pallidly third-hand" views and not understanding "the national character".

In particular he attacks Mr Corbyn for his lack of formal education, calling him "undereducated" because he received two Es at A-level before dropping out of course on trade unions at North London Polytechnic .

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"Corbyn says he enjoys 'reading and writing', to my eyes, he doesn’t have the eager aura of an autodidact," he writes. "It is a fair guess that his briefcase, or his satchel, contains nothing but manifestos and position papers. In general, his intellectual CV gives an impression of slow-minded rigidity; and he seems essentially incurious about anything beyond his immediate sphere."

He said he believes that because Mr Corbyn has spent the last 30 years as an MP for a safe Labour seat in North London he is "contentedly wedded to the things he already knows".

He said: "It is [easy] to imagine a Labour party that devolves for now into a leftist equivalent of the American GOP: hopelessly retrograde, self-absorbed, self-pitying and self-righteous, quite unembarrassed by its tantrum, necessarily and increasingly hostile to democracy, and in any sane view undeserving of a single vote."

It comes as Mr Corbyn is facing a leadership challenge from Simon Danczuk on the right wing of the party.

Mr Danczuk told the Independent on Sunday he was thinking about standing as a "stalking horse" candidate to unseat Mr Corbyn if Labour perform poorly in the Scottish elections next May.