Labour’s prematurely leaked General Election manifesto is unsurprisingly Thursday’s front page news.
Jeremy Corbyn’s vision for Britain, described by the Mirror as the “most left-wing election manifesto in a generation”, has at its heart the re-nationalisation of the railways, Royal Mail and energy industry, the abolition of tuition fees and high taxes on companies “with high numbers of staff on very high pay”.
The document has been warmly received in some quarters...
But the UK’s right-leaning press has a dire warning...
The first thing to notice was helpfully highlighted by Kev Heritage.
But warnings about Britain being “taken back to the 70s” have also been mooted in relation to something else - Brexit, backed by both of the above newspapers.
Back in October, Adam Posen, who sat on the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee from 2009 to 2012, warned that leaving the EU “is going to be an ongoing source of chronic pain for the UK for many years”.
He added: “It is going to put the UK in many ways back to where it was in the 1970s and early 1980s. Being uncompetitive, people having less faith in the stability of the regime.”
Earlier this year Dutch finance minister, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, said Brexit would “impoverish” Britain.
He added: “Let’s speak to each other again in 20 years, and then England will be back to where it was in the 70s.”
In addition, both the Daily Mail and the Telegraph have been advocates of reviving the Royal Yacht and the former has also championed “traditional” blue passports, both symbols of a bygone era and described by The Media Blog as “nostalgic nonsense”.
And then there was also this.
But there are those who are actually quite favourable of the 70s, many reminiscing of fonder times.
As for Brexit voters themselves, a YouGov poll in March found over half deemed capital punishment and dark blue passports as their most pressing desire with only slightly smaller majorities pushing for the reintroduction of the imperial measurement system and the right to beat schoolchildren.
Labour is expected to finalise its manifesto at a meeting on Thursday, but the extraordinary leak of the policy document a week ahead of its planned publication is a blow to the party’s campaign strategy, reports the Press Association.
To pay for the policy pledges, Labour has already announced plans to hike corporation tax to 26% by 2022, bringing in an extra £20 billion for the Exchequer, and indicated that people earning more than £80,000 will face tax rises.
A Conservative spokesman said: “This is a total shambles. Jeremy Corbyn’s plans to unleash chaos on Britain have been revealed.
“The commitments in this dossier will rack up tens of billions of extra borrowing for our families and will put Brexit negotiations at risk. Jobs will be lost, families will be hit and our economic security damaged for a generation if Jeremy Corbyn and the coalition of chaos are ever let anywhere near the keys to Downing Street.”
But for some the choice between Labour and the Tories appears to be a choice between going back to the 70s or the 50s.
To pay for the policy pledges, Labour has already announced plans to hike corporation tax to 26% by 2022, bringing in an extra £20 billion for the Exchequer, and indicated that people earning more than £80,000 will face tax rises.
But the manifesto indicates a further levy on firms “with high numbers of staff on very high pay”.
Labour has insisted its manifesto will be fully costed, and the document vows to eliminate the deficit and balance the budget by the end of the next parliament, the Mirror reported.