Tories and the public services

May’s number one challenge

THERESA MAY certainly came out fighting with a strong stump speech yesterday that focused on Brexit – and leadership. She has been taken aback by the apparent surge in support for Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn.

One reason is the Conservatives’ inability to counter Labour’s ‘spend, spend, spend’ approach to public services, despite Mr Corbyn not knowing the cost of his party’s plan to roll out free care to all two to four-year-olds. On the BBC’s Woman’s Hour, he floundered on his iPad for the answer before the interviewer told him it would cost billions, according to his education spokesman Angela Rayner.

Even though Labour is planning to increase taxes to their highest level since the aftermath of the Second World War, Mrs May has consistently downplayed the importance of health, schools and policing as election issues.

This was self-evident when she was heckled by audience members during her Sky News and Channel 4 Q&A when a teacher from Batley and Spen asked the Prime Minister to justify cuts to school budgets. Though the PM claimed more money was being spent on education, this increase is not keeping pace with the number of youngsters being taught in the country’s schools.

Not only did Mrs May fail to explain this adequately, but she has consistently shown insufficient support for the teaching profession – the very people whose priceless work is in fact the foundation of every successful economy.

And this is the challenge facing the Tory leader. Though she’s winning the argument when it comes to Brexit, the PM still needs to convince voters that she has the best interests of Britain’s public services at heart. Simply criticising Mr Corbyn’s profligacy will not suffice, especially when the Tory manifesto – launched in Halifax – offered little clarity, the socalled ‘dementia tax’ being the obvious example, and no detailed costings.