While Tories throw good cash after unhealthy, solely Labour have imaginative and prescient for development
Creating more good jobs is key to solving the cost-of-living crisis and giving Britain the economic growth needed to secure our financial future.
Keir Starmer knows that. Which is why yesterday he pledged to combine job centres with careers services, and increase support to help those with long-term illness back to work.
The Labour leader’s target as PM is to get two million more people into employment. It is why Mr Starmer will create the publicly owned Great British Energy company. It will not just slash household fuel bills but create 650,000 jobs in the renewables industry.
Contrast that with the Tories blowing £165million on job schemes in five towns that ended up with fewer people in work.
In Keighley, West Yorks, Universal Credit claims increased by 51%, while in Stevenage, Herts, jobless numbers went up 34%.
Now, Rishi Sunak wants to throw good money after bad, giving another 30 towns £20million. The Tories are so desperate that they are promising money the nation simply does not have on what Labour rightly calls a “phoney gimmick”.
The parties launched their battle buses yesterday as the election campaign ratchets up a notch, and manifestos will follow shortly.
Voters can then decide if Labour or the Tories have the most realistic plan for Britain. But it is already clear that Labour is the choice to get Britain working again.
Children first
Vulnerable children should not be treated as commodities, to be shunted round the country like human cargo for private profit.
Yet, in a damning indictment, that is what’s happening in Tory Britain. Today we reveal how firms snap up cheap property in our poorest towns to turn into children’s homes.
Millionaire bosses are stinging councils for up to £10,000 a week for each child in care – to maximise the return for investors.
In Blackpool alone, one in 52 children is a looked-after kid, many hauled far away from the friends and extended family they know.
Watchdog Ofsted says children are not getting the specific care they need. Blackpool’s bishop calls it a scandal. He is right.
Looking after children should be a job for local authorities but they lack the central funding to do it.
That must change. Public money should be spent on a child’s need, not on private greed.
End is near
Britain’s Got Talent’s My Way finalist Sydnie Christmas could be on the brink of West End stardom if she wins tonight.
But with the rent to pay, she’ll be back tomorrow at her day job as a gym receptionist.
Whatever the future holds for you, Sydnie, we’re sure you’ll do it your way.
