Labour leadership hopeful Jeremy Corbyn has developed something of a cult following.
Hundreds of people have been turned away from his already packed-out rallies – and a raft of celebrity endorsers ranging from singer Charlotte Church to film director Ken Loach have pledged their support for the Islington North MP.
But now his rockstar status has gone even further, after his used coffee cup fetched more than £50 on online auction site eBay.
After a week on the site, the paper cup attracted 23 bids, and sold for a final price of £51, plus 99p postage and packaging.
The woman who listed the cup on eBay, 49-year-old Maria Cooke, said she sold the cup to raise money fo charity Age UK Notts, which she works for.
Ms Cooke, from Nottingham, told the Standard: “My partner and I went to the Jeremy Corbyn event at the Playhouse in Nottingham, and he asked if he could put his empty coffee cup down on our table.
“We thought it would be very amusing to take it back and put it on eBay to raise money for the charity that I work for.
“In these difficult times we have to be quite creative about how we raise funds.
“I think it’s amazing, the amount of money we’ve raised, over 4,000 people looked at it.”
She continued: “I thought we’d be very lucky to raise a fiver. The money will help local older people, and our local charity has had some coverage.
“It shows how useful it can be for charities if you use social media to do something strange, but quite amusing.
“It also shows how interested I think people are in Jeremy Corbyn.”
Her eBay listing promised that if bids topped £50 she would endeavour to have the cup signed by Corbyn himself, so Ms Cooke has now contacted his parliamentary office, asking him to oblige.
The cup was bought by a group of around ten students from Oxford University, who clubbed together to secure the winning bid.
One of the collective, 21-year-old David Browne, from Northern Ireland, who has just graduated in law, said: “It was just a crazy idea that one of us came up with.
“We wanted to get it over the £50 threshold to get it signed, it was just a bit of fun really.
“In politics we stand from people who actually like Jeremy Corbyn right up to Conservative voters.”
When asked what the students would do with the cup, he said one of them would hold onto it for safe-keeping, and “maybe bring it to a couple of events.”
Activist Ned Donovan, 21, from London, who was outbid on the cup, joined the auction as he wanted to own a piece of Labour history.
He told the Standard: “To own a souvenir from the leadership election would be great. Jeremy is the only hope for us anyway.
“It’s equivalent to owning a lock of Lenin’s hair, or Tony Benn’s pipe. A true memento of a point of change in this country.”
Asked if he was disappointed not to have won the paper mug, he said: “To be quite honest, absolutely. But unfortunately in the end the price was just too much for me.”
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