Labour ‘ready to govern’ – Corbyn
train managers, were due to walk out for 48 hours from Sunday.
The union had said St Pancras has been reduced to “chaos” following a spate of problems, leaving staff to bear the brunt of passenger anger. PETROL prices have been cut by up to 2p per litre by supermarkets after a fall in wholesale costs.
Asda was the first to announce it was reducing prices, followed by Morrisons, Sainsbury’s and Tesco. Diesel prices remain unchanged. Asda said this was because “wholesale costs haven’t moved” for the fuel.
Average UK fuel prices had spiralled in recent weeks, reaching £1.31 per litre of petrol and £1.35 for diesel. DAVID HOCKNEY has unveiled a stained glass window tribute to the Queen at Westminster Abbey saying, “I hope she’ll like it”.
Spanning over eight metres high, the new work is the 81-year-old’s first in stained glass. Designed on his iPad and set in Hockney’s Yorkshire birthplace, it reflects the Queen’s love for, and connection with, the countryside.
Hockney was commissioned to create the window to celebrate the Queen’s reign.
The brightly-coloured abstract window of yellow, red, blue, pink, orange and greens, features hawthorn blossom and stands out in its JEREMY CORBYN set out the most radical left-wing agenda of any mainstream party in a generation, as he declared that Labour now represents “the new common sense” and is ready to govern.
To fervent applause from delegates at Labour’s annual conference in Liverpool, Mr Corbyn called on Prime Minister Theresa May to call an early general election, which he said could see him in 10 Downing Street by this time next year.
The Labour leader said his party was “ready to take charge” and deliver “a real alternative to the people of Britain – a radical plan to rebuild and transform our country”.
Mr Corbyn set out plans for a “green jobs revolution” to create 400,000 skilled jobs in windfarms and home insulation; an extension of free childcare; workers’ seats on company boards, and the creation of employee shareholding funds.
He also called for an end to the “racket” of privatisation and outsourcing, and demanded public services with “fairness and humanity” at their heart.
Other plans included a new tax on second homes to pay for house-building and a historic setting. Hockney said that the iPad was “a natural thing to use” because it is “back-lit like a window”.
The artist, who recently broke his own auction record with a £21.1 million painting, said that designing his first stained glass window “was a challenge”.
Hockney once said that he foreign policy driven by “progressive values and international solidarity”, with no more “reckless wars, like Iraq or Libya”.
“Change in our country is long overdue,” said Mr Corbyn. “Every month this Government remains in power, the worse things get. We will rebuild the public realm and create a genuinely mixed economy for the 21st Century. And after a decade of austerity, the next Labour government will confront the challenge of rebuilding our public services.”
Union leader Mark Serwotka hailed Mr Corbyn’s programme as “a transformative and radical socialist vision for the country”. But business voiced alarm. The director general of the CBI, Carolyn turned down the chance to paint the Queen because he was “very busy painting England actually, her country”.
Asked whether he had any response to the window from the monarch, who has not yet seen the finished result, he said: “Not yet, but I hope she’ll like it. I’m sure she will.” Fairbairn, warned that “policy built on ideology and diktat” would “harm those who can least afford it by driving down investment, productivity and pay”.
At the end of a conference dominated by Brexit, Mr Corbyn confirmed that Labour will vote against Mrs May’s Chequers plan and keep the option of a second referendum on EU withdrawal “on the table”.
But he left no doubt that a general election is his preferred outcome, sending a message to the Prime Minister: “Brexit is about the future of our country and our vital interests. It is not about leadership squabbles or parliamentary posturing.
“If you deliver a deal that includes a customs union and no hard border in Ireland, if you protect jobs, people’s rights at work and environmental and consumer standards – then we will support that sensible deal. A deal that would be backed by most of the business world and trade unions too.
“But if you can’t negotiate that deal then you need to make way for a party that can.”
Conservative chairman Brandon Lewis said: “Jeremy Corbyn has shown at every turn he is unfit to govern. All he offers are failed ideas that didn’t work in the past.”