BORIS JOHNSON LAUNCHES CONSERVATIVE CAMPAIGN EXCLUSIVELY IN THE TELEGRAPH

Prime Minister says Conservatives will ‘cheer’ wealth creators as he lays out his election manifesto

BORIS JOHNSON today compares Jeremy Corbyn to Stalin over his “hatred” of wealth creators as he says the Tories will “cheer, not sneer” entrepreneurs if they are returned to power.

The Prime Minister says that the Labour leader demonises billionaires with a “relish and a vindictiveness” not seen since the former Soviet leader persecuted landowners in the Thirties.

Writing in The Daily Telegraph on the day he officially launches the Tories’ general election campaign, Mr Johnson says Brexit will unlock “hundreds of billions” of pounds of investment in the UK, but that Labour would deliver nothing but further delay which would “hold the country back”.

He also sets out the domestic priorities at the heart of the Conservative manifesto, such as closing the “opportunity gap” by making sure every child has the same chance to make the most of their talents. The NHS, education and policing loom large, with Mr Johnson promising 40 new hospitals, increased funding for every school and safer streets with more beat bobbies and greater use of stop and search.

He will tonight launch his campaign in the West Midlands, telling activists the time has come to “change the dismal pattern of the last three years and to get out of our rut”.

Mr Corbyn, meanwhile, will today set out his own election priorities with a list of 10 policies on which he should be “judged” after five years in power. The list bears striking similarities to Ed Miliband’s pledges on the widely ridiculed “Ed Stone” in 2015.

Yesterday, Jo Swinson, the Liberal Democrat leader, “categorically” ruled out a post-election deal to prop up a Corbyn government as she warned he was a threat to national security.

It came as Nigel Farage began secret talks with Tory candidates over the possibility of election pacts with the Brexit Party in seats where Labour or the Lib Dems could win because of a split Leave vote.

Mr Johnson will this morning inform the Queen that Parliament has been dissolved, after which he is due to address the nation on why he called the poll and what he hopes to achieve.

He will tell Conservative supporters at the evening rally: “There is only one way to get Brexit done, and I am afraid the answer is to ask the people to change this blockading parliament.

“I don’t want an election. No prime minister wants an early election, especially not in December. But as things stand we simply have no choice – because it is only by getting Brexit done in the next few weeks that we can focus on all the priorities of the British people.”

In his Telegraph article, Mr Johnson takes aim at Mr Corbyn and Labour, who have suggested billionaires should be taxed out of existence.

Arguing that the only way to pay for “world-class healthcare and outstanding infrastructure” is to foster businesses and wealth creators of all sizes, he writes: “When someone gets up at 5am to get their shop ready; when someone risks their savings on an idea or a new product; when someone has the guts to enter a new market – at home or abroad – we don’t sneer at them.

“We cheer for them: because their success is our success; and the tragedy of the modern Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn is that they detest the profit motive so viscerally – and would raise taxes so wantonly – that they would destroy the very basis of this country’s prosperity.

“They pretend that their hatred is directed only at certain billionaires – and they point their fingers at individuals with a relish and a vindictiveness not seen since Stalin persecuted the kulaks.”

The kulaks were the Soviet Union’s wealthier peasant farmers, millions of whom were executed, arrested or deported by Stalin to redistribute land.

Mr Johnson says that far from placing the tax burden on the wealthy, Labour “would end up putting up taxes on everyone: on pensions, on businesses, on inheritance, on homes, on gardens” while Tories promise a “high wage, high skill, low tax economy”.

The Prime Minister adds that for the past three and a half years the country has been “trapped by Brexit” like the Greek mythological figure Tantalus, within touching distance of the “luscious grapes” on offer “and yet every time we reach out to grasp them we find they are whisked away, with yet another delay”.

Mr Johnson says that with a parliamentary majority he could get his Brexit deal agreed “in days” whereas Mr Corbyn would cause “at least another year” of delays and condemn the nation to “two miserable referendums”, on Brexit and Scottish independence.

In a clear message to voters considering backing the Brexit Party, he says: “Remember that a vote for any other minor party is effectively a vote for Corbyn, and his catastrophic political and economic programme.”

The tragedy of the modern Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn is that they detest the profit motive so viscerally... they point their fingers at individuals with a relish and a vindictiveness not seen since Stalin persecuted the kulaks.