Jeremy Corbyn unveils £50bn tax grab in Labour manifesto – and that doesn’t even cover cost of renationalising water, energy and rail firms

JEREMY Corbyn is unveiling a £50billion tax grab in his party’s manifesto – and that doesn’t even cover cost of renationalising water, energy and rail firms.

The Labour leader’s hard-left Socialist blueprint to run Britain collapsed within minutes of being released after a multi-billion pound black hole opened up in his sums.

Issuing the most expensive election document in the party’s 120-year history, he is making £48.6billion of new spending pledges – which he insists he will pay for by jumbo income tax and corporation tax hikes, as well as a new high pay levy.

But missing from the 50-page long plan – unveiled in Bradford this morning - are any costings for huge ticket items such as renationalising key industries or keeping the retirement age at 66.

The party insists that every promise in the manifesto is "fully costed", but party officials have refused to put aside money to pay for the policy, because they count it as an investment which will theoretically return a revenue stream in future.

Highlight pledges from document include:

• Return of 50p tax rate for those on £123,000 a year and threshold from 45p rate down to £80,000
• Corporation tax to rise from 21% to 26%, and levy on employers paying high wages
• National Transformation Fund to invest £250billion over 10 years to upgrade economy
• Bring private rail companies back into public ownership as their franchises expire
• Transition to publicly-owned, decentralised energy system
• Replacement of water system with regional, publicly-owned companies
• Reversal of Royal Mail privatisation "at the earliest opportunity”
• Scrap Conservatives' Brexit White Paper and instead focus on retaining Single Market and Customs Union membership
• No cap on immigration and describing targets as "bogus"
• National Education Service, scrap university tuition fees and reduce class sizes
• Extend the 30 hours of free childcare to all two-year-olds

If Labour did take power, they would have to shell out billions to take over privatised services - for example, Royal Mail alone is worth more than £4billion.

However, buying up large companies is a risky proposition because their value could easily fall if they are mismanaged by politicians and civil servants, leaving the public out of pocket.

But walking out to thunderous applause and accompanied by All Together Now by The Farm, he talked up the manifesto - which was initially leaked last week.

He began by praising former Labour leader Harold Wilson, who was Prime Minister in the 1970s and chancellor of Bradford University – where the launch was taking place.

But despite holding up a copy of the manifesto, called For The Many Not The Few, to a rapturous reception from the crowd of supporters, he failed to hold up the second part of the document – which sets out how much the pledges would cost.

The pamphlet, Funding Britain’s Future, shows that a Labour government would raise £19.4billion through hikes in corporation tax, raising the headline rate to 21% from 2018/19, 24% the following year, and 26% in 2020/21.

Bringing back the 50p tax rate on earnings over £123,000 will raise £6.4billion, the manifesto claims, while the threshold at which the 45p additional income tax rate kicks in will be lowered from £150,000 to £80,000.