JEREMY CORBYN won star support for his surging Labour leadership campaign yesterday from socialist actor Maxine Peake.

In a statement on her website, Ms Peake said the left candidate was giving hope to both his party and people targeted for Tory cuts.

“For me, Jeremy Corbyn is our only beacon of hope to get the Labour Party back on track, get the electorate back in touch with politics and save this country from the constant mindless bullying of the vulnerable and poor,” she wrote.

The working-class screen star also took aim at rival candidate Liz Kendall for her campaign’s focus on “aspirational” middle-class voters.

In a thinly veiled criticism, Ms Peake said: “Aspirational? Surely we should all aspire that everyone living in this country has the right to a decent quality of life.”

Support from the award-winning Bolton-born actor is unsurprising given her strong socialist credentials.

Famous for portraying working-class life in Dinner Ladies, Shameless and The Village, she is a former member of the Communist Party.

Her endorsement is undoubtedly another major boost to Mr Corbyn’s burgeoning leadership bid.

It comes after seven more constituency labour parties (CLPs) voted to nominate him at meetings on Thursday evening.

Lewisham Deptford, Almond Valley, Edinburgh Central, Leicester South, Linlithgow, Gateshead, Falkirk East, Hayes and Harlington and Bristol North West all came out for Corbyn.

That took his total nominations to 28 — just behind Andy Burnham on 33 but ahead of Yvette Cooper on 22 and Liz Kendall who languished on four.

The surge saw his odds slashed again to as low as 8-1 with eight different bookmakers.

And Mr Corbyn can expect plenty of support for his campaign today when he delivers the prestigious Labour Party address at the Durham miners’ gala.

He will tell the 131st “big meeting” that the first all-Tory budget for two decades had “thrown down the gauntlet at the Labour movement.”

And writing in today’s Star, Mr Corbyn asks: “Are we to continue with an austerity-lite economic policy and accept that there must be an arbitrary date for a budget surplus and all the brutal inequality it creates … or offer something different?”