Labour health secretary humiliated after claiming his party will lose general election

Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn (left) and shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth during a visit to Crawley Hospital in West Sussex. Picture: Andrew Matthews/PA Wire

Jonathan Ashworth said the situation facing Labour was “abysmal” because voters “can’t stand Corbyn” and think the party has “blocked Brexit”.

The shadow health secretary, seen as one of Mr Corbyn’s closest allies, is heard saying on the recording about the prospect of the Labour leader becoming prime minister: “It’s not going to happen! I can’t see it happening.”

He sought to dismiss his remarks as “banter”, but cancelled an interview with BBC Radio 5 Live and later apologised to his party.

Mr Ashworth had been expecting to capitalise on a chaotic day for the Conservatives on Monday, triggered by the Prime Minister’s refusal to look at a photo of a four-year-old boy forced to sleep on a hospital floor.

But Labour’s attempt to drive home its advantage on the NHS was derailed when the Guido Fawkes website published a recording made by a Tory activist and friend of Mr Ashworth.

In the conversation, Mr Ashworth claimed that the Civil Service machine would “pretty quickly move to safeguard security” if Mr Corbyn entered Number 10.

He also said Labour MPs had “f***** it up” in 2016 in their attempt to remove the Labour leader by acting “too early”.

And asked what will happen to Mr Corbyn if Labour fails to deny the Tories a majority tomorrow, Mr Ashworth suggests a change of leadership will follow. “That’s the thing that’s on our minds… I think things can change quickly; I think things change more quickly anyway now.”

Confronted about the recording minutes after it had been released yesterday, Mr Ashworth admitted it made him “look like a right plonker”, but said he made the remarks while “joking around” with friend Greig Baker.

“We’re having banter with each other – we’re joking around,” he told the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire show. “It’s not what I mean when I’m winding up a friend – I’m trying to sort of pull his leg a bit.”

Mr Ashworth said he was “saddened” that a friend had leaked the conversation. Mr Baker, who stood down as Conservative association chairman in Canterbury earlier this year, heads a political consultancy firm.

Mr Ashworth apologised to Labour Party members, and suggested he was trying to “psych” his friend out “like football managers do”.

“Obviously, with the benefit of hindsight, I’ve been too clever by half and I look like an idiot as a result of doing it,” he later told the BBC’s Politics Live.

Tory Party chairman James Cleverly called the remarks an “honest and truly devastating assessment” of Mr Corbyn’s leadership “by one of his most trusted election lieutenants”.

Meanwhile, a social media account which was the source of claims that the photograph of four year-old Jack Willment-Barr was staged was hacked, according to reports.

Posts from a Facebook account claiming to belong to a nurse who had a “good friend” at the Leeds General Infirmary were shared on social media, claiming that the boy “was in fact put there by his mother who then took photos on her mobile phone and uploaded it to media outlets”.

The account dismissed the photograph as “another Momentum propaganda story”, a reference to the Labour grassroots campaign group.

But speaking to the Guardian, the owner of the Facebook account, said: “I was hacked. I am not a nurse and I certainly don’t know anyone in Leeds.

“I’ve had to delete everything as I have had death threats to myself and my children.”

Mr Johnson was criticised for an apparent lack of empathy after he initially refused to look at the photo on an ITV reporter’s phone – before taking the handset and putting it in his pocket.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock was dispatched to the hospital in an attempt to defuse the media firestorm.

However, his appearance prompted further recriminations following claims that his aide had been punched by a Labour Party activist.

Labour accused the Tories of “bare-faced lying” after video footage of the incident posted online showed only the arm of a protester accidentally brushing against the aide’s face.