Assuming Theresa May wins the General Election, here are the urgent changes we want
From proper help for the 'just about managings' to reinventing the House of Lords, what we hope the PM's vision includes
ASSUMING Theresa May wins the election comfortably in June, what then? What’s her vision to reshape Britain?
We agree entirely with her full-fat Brexit plan: out of the single market and customs union, free from EU courts, free to strike our own trade deals, fully controlling our borders and laws.
She must also be serious about walking away if no decent deal can be struck.
But there are other urgent changes Mrs May should put in the Tory manifesto.
First, proper help — not just lip service — for the “just about managings”.
Tax cuts, for example, could be paid for by ending state-funded perks for richer OAPs.
We are not talking about ordinary pensioners for whom life is a daily struggle.
We mean those on ample private incomes living in homes they long ago paid off, who still get a bus pass, winter fuel allowance and “triple-lock” rises on their state handout.
We MUST force through a major house-building programme even if Tories in the shires squeal
Britain can no longer afford all that while working families are barely scraping together the rent.
Then we MUST force through a major house-building programme even if Tories in the shires squeal.
It is a vital factor in making homes affordable again.
Mrs May must bin David Cameron’s scandalous foreign aid target of 0.7 per cent of GDP and only fund deserving projects case-by-case.
We can still save many lives spending a fraction of the current budget.
Higher education must refocus on job training.
Too many sixth-formers drift into meaningless three-year degrees, emerging with huge debts but no employable skills. It’s a disaster for them and the economy.
And Mrs May must finally reinvent the House of Lords.
For a start, the number of peers should be slashed.
But in 2017 we cannot surely continue to have ancient, unelected party time-servers ruling over voters’ lives.
These are a few of the changes we want.
We look forward to the PM’s plan.
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Poisonous pact
THE Tories already had a mountain of ammo to fire at Labour’s hapless Jeremy Corbyn.
Nicola Sturgeon then gifted them a flame-thrower.
Two years ago voters were repulsed by the toxic prospect of an Ed Miliband minority Government propped up by the SNP.
Now its leader has offered Corbyn the same “progressive alliance”.
So we’d have a Scottish party, bent on destroying the UK, in bed with a hard-left Labour whose “friends” include IRA murderers and anti-Semitic, homophobic Islamist terrorists.
How very progressive.
Corbyn claims he wants nothing to do with it.
But he would, of course, if he came anywhere near power.
Admittedly, that’s almost impossible to imagine.
And Ms Sturgeon just made it even less likely.