Abbabomination
MEANWHILE AT THE TORY CRINGE..
The country has never been so divided. Brexit talks are catastrophic. Austerity is still biting. So why the hell did Theresa May think an excruciatingly awkward shimmy to Dancing Queen was the best way to reassure the nation she's in control?
THERESA May yesterday claimed “austerity is over” as she attempted to plaster over Brexit splits with a pitch to centre-ground voters.
But the Prime Minister’s conference speech promise “there are better days ahead” was greeted with scepticism after eight years of painful cuts.
Addressing party activists in Birmingham, May vowed her Government would boost investment in public services after Brexit while continuing to reduce debt.
In a lengthy passage marked “end of austerity”, the Tory leader said: “Sound finances are essential but they are not the limit of our ambition.”
She added: “Debt as a share of the economy will continue to go down, support for public services will go up.
“Because, a decade after the financial crash, people need to know that the austerity it led to is over and that their hard work has paid off.”
May danced on to the stage to Abba’s Dancing Queen and her fancy footwork on Brexit appeared to firm up her position as Tory leader.
Banishing memories of the nightmare speech last year when she lost her voice, May urged Eurosceptic delegates to get behind her in talks with the EU. She said: “We are entering the toughest phase of the negotiations. You saw in Salzburg that I am standing up for Britain.
“What we are proposing is very challenging for the EU. But if we stick together and hold our nerve I know we can get a deal that delivers for Britain.”
She took a thinly-veiled swipe at leadership rival Boris Johnson by making fun of comments he is alleged to have made about businesses over Brexit.
May said the Tories would “back business” under her leadership, rather than the rude remark attributed to the former foreign secretary.
And she confirmed fuel duty would be frozen for the ninth year in a row in the next Budget.
The Prime Minister also launched acidic attacks on Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.
May said the SNP leader would sell out Scots fishermen by keeping them in the EU’s common fisheries policy.
“Let me say this to Nicola Sturgeon,” she said. “You claim to stand up for Scotland but you want to lock Scottish fishermen into the CFP forever. That’s not ‘Stronger for Scotland’, it’s a betrayal of Scotland.”
May said Corbyn and Labour offer only “bogus solutions”.
She seized on the party’s bitter row over anti-Semitism and claimed Corbyn and his allies reject the “common values” once shared by both main parties.
“What has befallen Labour is a national tragedy,” she said.
“What has it come to when Jewish families today seriously discuss where they should go if Jeremy Corbyn becomes prime minister?
“When a leading Labour MP says his party is ‘institutionally racist’?
“When the leader of the Labour Party is happy to appear on Iranian state TV but attacks our free media here in Britain?
“That is what Jeremy Corbyn has done to the Labour Party.
“It is our duty, in this Conservative Party, to make sure he can never do it to our country.”
In a clear pitch for mainstream voters, she claimed were “appalled” by Corbyn, she said she wanted the “decent, moderate and patriotic” Conservatives to be “a party for the whole country”.
She made a grab for traditionally Labour territory by saying that the NHS “embodies our principles as Conservatives” and highlighting
diversity in the Tory ranks – including Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson, a lesbian mother-to-be. May said Labour’s plans for nationalisation and “endless expensive promises” would cost £1trillion. “Labour would have to pay for it by raising taxes higher and higher,” she said. The Prime Minister added: “These ideas won’t help people who are struggling, they will hurt them.”
May also announced a new cancer strategy for England that will focus on early detection in a bid to improve survival rates.
It will be funded through the £20billion a year NHS cash boost that ministers announced earlier in the year and which will also see an increase in funds for the Scottish Government.