‘Investment blitz’ to be funded by wealthy and includes tax on energy firms to tackle climate crisis
Jeremy Corbyn has launched the most radical Labour manifesto in decades, promising an “investment blitz” that would leave no corner of the UK untouched and welcoming the hostility of billionaires, big business and dodgy landlords.
Speaking at an upbeat event at Birmingham City University, where students and activists leaned over balconies adorned with banners setting out Labour’s policies, Corbyn urged the public to vote for “hope” at the general election in three weeks’ time.
At the centre of the manifesto, called It’s Time for Real Change, is a large increase in public investment, funded by taxes on corporations and top earners.
The Labour leader called it “a manifesto full of popular policies that the political establishment has blocked for a generation”, and it appeared significantly more radical than the party’s 2017 programme.
Corbyn insisted that, as Labour has promised in 2017, there would be no tax rises for 95% of earners, with only those on incomes of more than £80,000 being affected.
“You can have this plan for real change, because you don’t need money to buy it: you just need a vote,” he said.
A Labour government would also give public sector workers a 5% pay rise next year, helping to offset the impact of the 1% pay cap that has been in place for several years, the manifesto says.
