Jeremy Corbyn has heavily implied that he would write off historic student debt, even if you’ve already graduated

Labour leader, and all round top fucking bloke, Jeremy Corbyn has said he wants to help students with the “historical misfortune” of starting a degree after fees were tripled in 2012 to £9,000. Having previously committed to abolishing tuition fees and reintroducing maintenance grants for current and new students, everyone’s favourite socialist has doubled down on his targeting of young voters.

That’s right. If you went to uni from 2012 onwards, and paid the £9,000 Lib Dem toll to do so, you could have your debt erased.

Putting tuition fees in the sea was costed by Labour in their manifesto at £9.5bn (£11.2bn if you include maintenance grants). The total backlog of student debt since fees were tripled equates to around £30bn. So if Corbyn does the unthinkable, the political treble, and wins the election what happens to all those zeroes? And more importantly, what happens to me and every other unfortunate member of the £9k club?

In tomorrow’s NME’s cover interview Corbyn is asked whether he would like to clear that debt. He said: “Yes, there is a block of those that currently have a massive debt, and I’m looking at ways we could reduce that, ameliorate that, lengthen the period of paying it off, or some other means of reducing the debt burden.

“I don’t have the simple answer for it at this stage. I don’t think anybody would expect me to, because this election was called unexpectedly.

“We had two weeks to prepare all of this – but I’m very well aware of that problem.

“And I don’t see why those that had the historical misfortune to be at university during the £9,000 period should be burdened excessively compared to those that went before or those that come after. I will deal with it.”

Critics have, predictably, labelled JC’s postures on student debt as an attempt to buy young votes – seemingly forgetting that is indeed the purpose of any election manifesto. Maybe they’re concerned that the money could be better spent alleviating the weight of student living costs. Or, more likely, they’re scared that young people could put Labour in Downing Street.