May’s Conservatives send new mixed message on tax as United Kingdom election nears

British Prime Minister Theresa May’s narrowing lead in opinion polls ahead of the June 8 election has weakened sterling and raised questions over whether she will win the landslide predicted just a month ago.

He looked comfortable dealing with concerns about his party’s proposed tax rises for the well-off by linking them with investment which in turn would lead to growth in the economy. He also failed to alleviate Labour’s credibility problem when a voter asked him if Labour’s manifesto was an achievable wish list or “a letter to Santa” – expect this clip to do the rounds tomorrow.

Another thing the Tories were not expecting was a decent Labour manifesto that is ambitious yet down to earth and has achieved some impressive cut-through with the voters. Tuition fees tripled; government grants to help the poorest attending universities were axed and replaced with loans with interest; under-25s lost their entitlement to housing benefits, while others were squeezed by a spiraling housing market; and job prospects have deteriorating “alarmingly”, according to Britain’s biggest trade union.

Fast forward a year, and Theresa May’s government has given precious little detail on what, exactly, Brexit will mean, but the opposition has been somewhat successful in exposing what her “strong and stable” austerity focused government will mean for these public services: even tougher times.

The new Labour leader, who is a committed socialist, was first elected leader in 2015 and then reelected in 2016.

Many have drawn comparisons between Corbyn and Sanders due to their political leanings. Another theory is that it is the work of “overeager” Labour voters, who who tend to be more interested in politics, and thus likelier to respond to surveys.

May has faced some criticism for declining to directly debate Corbyn or any of the smaller party leaders. Different from Blair, Corbyn was a radical backbench MP throughout his parliamentary career that began in 1983.

It may well be that the polls are under-estimating Conservative support, as they did in 1992 and in 2015. He won the leadership election with a crushing majority – taking 59.5% of the vote. Ask anyone in the British army at the time … It picked Mr Corbyn, a rank outsider who just scraped enough nominations to make it into the contest, to lead the party in a new direction. Such a statement reveals the inbuilt hostility of important sections of the British establishment to any hint of radical social or economic change. “The Tories are now trying to pitch the young against the old”. The minimum wage will go up to £10 an hour. Poll numbers suggested that Labour would lose a large number of seats; one member of his own party predicted a “historic and catastrophic defeat”.

But Mrs May insisted she was not ducking a debate, saying she preferred to take questions direct from voters.

Sir Keir Starmer suggested Theresa May had failed in her first negotiations with the bloc, attempting to secure the rights of United Kingdom nationals living on the continent.

While her hardline Brexit strategy is opposed by all other major parties, Britain has already started the clock ticking on leaving the bloc by triggering a two-year negotiation period with Brussels.

And by attracting thousands of zealous young new supporters and re-engaging hard-left activists who had abandoned the party under Mr Blair, Mr Corbyn has created a power base that helped him survive an attempted coup by party moderates previous year.