Corbyn’s pledges ‘would cost £312bn’ Conference reports:
Political Editor
JEREMY CORBYN was last night accused of making £312 billion-worth of promises he cannot keep as he set out his vision of “socialism for the 21st century”.
The Labour leader used his conference speech to announce plans for statefunded giveaways that would have to be paid for with more tax or borrowing.
A pledge to provide lifelong free education and retraining came on top of costly policies announced by Labour this week on paying off PFI contracts and reversing scheduled cuts to some public services.
Addressing the party gathering in Brighton, Mr Corbyn claimed “we are now the political mainstream” as he insisted Labour was “on the threshold of power”. But the Conservatives said the speech showed he was economically incompetent and not fit to govern.
Mr Corbyn said: “We have become a government-inwaiting. Our message to the country could not be clearer: Labour is ready.”
Mr Corbyn said Labour would make university education and adult education and retraining free for everyone, which Labour say would cost £13 billion, including the cost of scrapping tuition fees. Mr Corbyn said: “This is central to our socialism for the 21st century, for the many not the few.”
The Tories said Mr Corbyn’s policies would cost the country £312 billion. Damian Green, First Secretary of State, said: “Jeremy Corbyn’s speech summed up the problem with Labour: lots of big promises, but no explanation of how they would deliver them.”
A Tory spokesman added that Labour’s policies would cost as much in extra debt repayments as it would cost to employ 81,000 nurses, 69,000 teachers and 66,000 police officers combined.
JEREMY CORBYN made a bold bid to cast Labour as the new party of the “centre ground” and the “political mainstream” in his speech to the Labour Party conference yesterday.
In a rapturously received address to 4,000 activists, Mr Corbyn made clear that the centre ground in politics had shifted since his predecessor Tony Blair pulled Labour rightwards to win power in the Nineties.
The Labour leader also claimed the party was now a government-in-waiting, attacked Donald Trump and Margaret Thatcher, and unveiled new policies on organ donation, education and housing.
The new centre ground
Emboldened by the party’s betterthan-expected showing in June’s general election, Mr Corbyn said: “Today’s centre ground is certainly not where it was 20 or 30 years ago. A new consen- sus is emerging from the great economic crash and the years of austerity, when people started to find political voice for their hopes for something different and better.”
He continued: “We need to build a still broader consensus around the priorities we set in the election, making the case for both compassion and collective aspiration.
“This is the real centre of gravity of British politics. We are now the political mainstream.
“Our manifesto and our policies are popular because that is what most people in our country actually want, not what they’re told they should want.”
Labour was now the “party of common sense”. He said: “It is Labour that is now setting the agenda and winning the arguments for a new common sense about the direction our country should take.
“There is a new common sense emerging about how the country should be run.
“That’s what we fought for in the election and that’s what’s needed to renation place the broken model forged by Margaret Thatcher many years ago.”
Threshold of power
Despite failing to win the election, Mr Corbyn said that the party was a “Government-in-waiting”. “Yes, we didn’t do quite well enough and we remain in opposition for now, but we have become a government-in-waiting. And our message to the country could not be clearer – Labour is ready. We are ready for government.”
Housing
Families who live on estates which have had millions of pounds spent on them as part of a regeneration programme will be guaranteed a home on the same terms as before, Mr Corbyn said. To a standing ovation, the Labour leader said his party would pass laws in government to protect families from what he described as “forced gentrification and social cleansing”.
He said: “Regeneration is a much abused word. Too often what it really means is forced gentrification and social cleansing, as private developers move in and tenants and leaseholders are moved out.” He added: “No social cleansing, no jacking up rents, no exorbitant ground rents.”
Organ donation
Everyone in England will be regarded as having consented to organ donation unless they have opted out if Labour wins the next general election. Mr Corbyn said England will follow the example of Wales which became the first in the UK to introduce the system to increase organ donors.
There were more than 5,000 people waiting for an organ transplant, he said, yet in recent years only 3,500 of them were getting the life saving treatments they needed.
Cradle to grave education
Labour will establish a National Education Service to give people an education “from the cradle to the grave”, Mr Corbyn said.
The Labour leader pledged to include “at its core free tuition for all college courses, technical and vocational training so that no one is held back by costs and everyone has the chance to learn”. Mr Corbyn said: “Lifelong learning for all is essential in the economy of the future.”
Grenfell Tower
The Grenfell Tower tragedy was a “tragic monument” to Conservative policies, Mr Corbyn said.
Mr Corbyn quoted a poem by Ben Okri and added: “We have a duty as a country to learn the lessons from this calamity and ensure that a changed world flowers. I hope that the public inquiry will assist.
“Look at the Conservative housing record and you understand why Grenfell residents are sceptical about their Conservative council and this Conservative government.”
Donald Trump
Britain had to be a “candid friend to the United States, now more than ever”, Mr Corbyn said as he took aim at Donald Trump.
The Labour leader attacked the US president for saying he wants to pull out of the Paris climate change accord and his speech attacking North Korea at the United Nations last week.
Mr Corbyn said: “The speech made by the US president to the United Nations last week was deeply disturbing. Devoid of concern for human rights or universal values, it was not the speech of a world leader.”
Hostile press
Labour won more votes at the election despite attempts from right wing newspapers “to trash Labour at every turn”, Mr Corbyn said. He urged Theresa May, the Prime Minister, to “take another walking holiday and make another impetuous decision” to call a general election adding: “The Labour campaign machine is primed and ready to roll.”
He said: “There were some who didn’t come out of the election too well. I’m thinking of some of our more traditional media friends. They ran the campaign they always do under orders from their tax exile owners to trash Labour at every turn. The day before the election one paper devoted 14 pages to attacking the Labour Party. And our vote went up nearly 10 per cent.
“Never have so many trees died in vain. The British people saw right through it. So this is a message to the Daily Mail’s editor – next time, please could you make it 28 pages?”