Both the Labour Party and Conservative Party have made a number of multi-billion pound pledges as Jeremy Corbyn and Boris Johnson draw the battle lines in the lead up to the general election on December 12. Labour wants to bring the water and energy utilities, train firms and Royal Mail back under public ownership, which critics argued could cost hundreds of billions of pounds. Last week, Labour pledged to part-nationalise telecoms giant BT as part of a plan to bring free full-fibre broadband to every home and business in the UK.

Labour is trying to bribe voters with a shopping list of rotten promises

Matthew Lesh

The party said the estimated capital cost of rolling out full-fibre broadband was £15billion, on top of the government’s existing £5billion earmarked for broadband expansion, and would be paid for by borrowing, but BT’s boss Philip Jansen argued the scheme would cost up to £100billion.

Labour’s plan for the introduction of a four-day working week has also come under heavy fire, with the Centre for Policy Studies think tank warning it could add up to £45billion to the public sector pay bill.

Other pledges include borrowing £250billion to spend on transport, energy and broadband infrastructure over 10 years; free personal care for over-65s in England costing of £6billion in 2020/21 and rising to £8billion by 2030/31, and free prescriptions in England costing £745million each year.

Matthew Lesh, head of research at the Adam Smith Institute, told Express.co.uk: “Labour is trying to bribe voters with a shopping list of rotten promises.”

Meanwhile, Dinesh Dhamija, Liberal Democrat MEP for London and the British Indian entrepreneur best known for founding online travel agency Ebookers, blasted Labour’s spending plans as “hogwash”.

He told this website: “Labour are throwing money at everything to win votes. Every party says they are doing the right thing but the voter has no idea which are most substantiated.

“The average voter doesn’t care if it’s a costed manifesto they just care about soundbites. People vote for the party with the best promises.

“The plans are hogwash – a mirage to put in front of people. Promising free prescriptions and free care for the over 65s for example is a bribe for a particular sector of votes.”

Mr Dhamija also destroyed Labour’s four-day working week plan, warning the spending proposals could trigger “huge inflation” and see the UK’s credit rating plummet.

He added: “As for the four day working week – people think, great, an extra day’s holiday but it will result in a one-fifth salary cut because salaries don’t grow on trees.

“The claim that you would have the same productivity within a four day week as a five day week is on a par with the Leave campaign’s false bus slogan.

“If they just spend, spend, spend, we’ll get huge inflation. They would end up having to print money and this would likely result in the UK sink down another two notches in its credit rating.

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“Very few voters understand this. They just think they’ll get free everything. It will be the poor who get impacted the most because that it is rarely the rich that get impacted.”

Ben Harris-Quinney, chairman of the Bow Group think tank, said after nine years in office, the Conservatives have overseen national debt almost double from £1trillion and 75 percent of GDP to £1.8trillion and 86 percent of GDP.

But he added Labour has the “wildest spending plans” in the lead-up to next month’s general election, “which over a five year Parliament could double the national debt again and heavily burden taxpayers, finally taking almost everything each citizen owns”.

James Heywood, senior researcher at the Centre for Policy Studies think tank, warned: “Ultimately every pound spent by government is a pound paid out of the pockets of taxpayers.

“Labour’s spending commitments are so substantial that even the tax rises they have committed to would not come close to paying for them.

“They would either have to raise taxes even further or rapidly increase the national debt, or most likely both.”

On Thursday, Mr Corbyn will appeal to voters by saying the policies are “fully costed”, with no tax hikes “for 95% of taxpayers”, when he sets out the party’s plans.

He will say the “manifesto of hope” for next month’s election is full of policies “that the political establishment has blocked for a generation”.

Mr Corbyn will tell supporters at an event in Birmingham: “This is a manifesto of hope. A manifesto that will bring real change. A manifesto full of popular policies that the political establishment has blocked for a generation. Those policies are fully costed, with no tax increases for 95 percent of taxpayers.

“Over the next three weeks, the most powerful people in Britain and their supporters are going to tell you that everything in this manifesto is impossible. That it’s too much for you. Because they don’t want real change.

“Why would they? The system is working just fine for them. It’s rigged in their favour.”

Express.co.uk has contacted Labour for further comment.

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