Jeremy Corbyn makes humiliating DOUBLE U-turn on benefits within hours of unveiling Labour’s election manifesto

JEREMY Corbyn was forced into a humiliating DOUBLE U-TURN hours after unveiling Labour’s election manifesto today.

In a question and answer session at the launch event in Bradford he said his party would end the benefits freeze by the Tory Government.

He stunned the audience with the announcement – as the pledge wasn’t in his speech or the document released by the party.

But it turned out it wasn’t new policy after all, and the hapless Leftie back-tracked in a later interview.

Later on, however, a Labour spokesperson confirmed it WAS on the cards - leaving the party's position on the matter a complete mess.

After detailing his socialist blueprint for Britain this morning, including a £50billion tax bombshell, he was questioned about some of the details.

ITV's Robert Peston asked why ending the benefits freeze did not feature in the 128-page vision for a Labour Government.

Mr Corbyn replied: "Yes, increasing benefits is important, and clearly we are not going to freeze benefits. That is very clear.

“We are also looking at the perverse effects of the benefit cap on people and their housing accommodation, particularly in London and in the centre of our big cities.”

He added: “You will be hearing more about that in the very near future.”

But the Labour boss pulled a sharp U-turn an hour later.

Asked by reporters if the policy would be confirmed he said: "We have not made a commitment on that.

"The commitment I make is that I do understand the perverse effects of the cap, and we will be dealing with that in the context of more affordable secure housing and high wages through the living wage.”

But later on this afternoon a Labour spokesperson was forced to clarify the position.

They said that the move WOULD be on the cards.

A Labour spokesperson said: "As our manifesto and costings documents explain, Labour is committed to injecting £10 billion over five years into the benefits system to review and redesign it for the economy we want to create and make it more effective at reducing poverty and supporting people in work.

"As Jeremy Corbyn made clear today, that will mean an end to the freeze. The form that restructuring will take will be subject to review."

It comes after the shadow business secretary admitted Labour still has to set out some of the detail of its funding plans.

Rebecca Long-Bailey was asked about the cost of the party's rejection of proposals to increase the state pension age above 66 on BBC Radio 4's World At One programme.

She said: "We're protecting the triple lock for pensioners, and we have made reference to assessing the pensionable age as well, and that will be a subject for review over the broader term."

Pressed on how the party would find the funds, Ms Long-Bailey replied: "We will be setting out our stall on that in due course."

The Labour candidate said the cost of the housing benefit cap "would be a subject for long-term review and we're carrying out a detailed consultation into that on day one".

Ms Long-Bailey defended the manifesto as fully costed, telling the programme: "We've set out our spending commitments, we're quite clear on what we're going to do on day one.”

It comes after their manifesto was derided for not including the money needed to being the rail, water and energy industries back into public hands - as well as a £250billion infrastructure fund – in its costings.

A Conservative source said of the launch: “This may be Jeremy Corbyn’s manifesto – but the costings behind it are pure Diane Abbott.”