Making his inaugural speech as party leader at the Labour conference in Brighton today (29 September), Corbyn said housing was a “top priortity” for the party.
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And he took a few jabs at the unrelenting hostility he has raced from some in British’s rambunctious tabloid press, pointing out that one paper had gone so far as to say Corbyn was welcoming the possibility that mankind would be wiped out by an approaching asteroid.
Mr Corbyn will say in his address to conference: “I want open debate, I will listen to everyone, I firmly believe leadership is listening”.
Labour’s shadow chancellor John McDonnell has said the party has “aggressive” plans to make corporations such as Amazon, Google Starbucks and Vodafone pay their “fair share of taxes”.
He pledged again to create an entirely new kind of economics for the country, including massive investment in housebuilding, welfare for the self-employed, mental health services and industry – in contrast to a Conservative austerity project that he said represented “the real risk to economic and family security”.
“We will tackle the deficit but this is the dividing line between Labour and Conservative – unlike them, we will not tackle the deficit on the backs of middle and low earners and especially by attacking the poorest in our society”.
He also reiterated his belief that Trident should be scrapped but said that this was a personal view. Stand up against prejudice.
He said: “It’s that sense of fair play, these shared majority values in Britain, that are fundamental reasons why I love this country and it’s people“.
In her speech to conference, Kezia Dugdale, the Scottish Labour leader, said “the gap between the richest and the rest” has increased in Scotland’s schools during the SNP’s eight years in power, while hospitals are “creaking at the seams”.
Labour have lost all credibility, the SNP has said, following confirmation that the party have quietly voted to continue their support for the renewal of Trident without any debate on the issue.
Labour will learn the lessons of the past and claim its place as the “progressive voice for Scotland”, Jeremy Corbyn has promised.
‘If I used my Twitter account as a guide to how we’re doing in our general election campaign, I should be Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change and Ed Miliband should be Prime Minister.
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He is seen as radical by the public and by political circles because he wants to undo a lot of the Labour party’s old Blairite policies.
