TELFORD, England _ Boris Johnson unveiled a safety first program of policies for a "sensible" Conservative government as he aimed to consolidate his lead in opinion polls ahead of the Dec. 12 U.K. general election.
Outlining his party's manifesto, Johnson carefully avoided the radical language and out-of-the-blue policy announcements that derailed his predecessor Theresa May's campaign in 2017.
Instead, he set out a center-ground Conservative agenda on British domestic policies, including promises to cut taxes, and to put money into the nation's beloved free-to-use National Health Service.
There was one big condition Johnson said must be met first _ to deliver Brexit and end years of deadlock and division over the U.K.'s divorce from the European Union. The only way of ending the trauma, Johnson claimed, was to elect a majority Conservative government.
"For the last three and a half years, this country has felt trapped, like a lion in a cage," Johnson wrote in the introduction to the 59-page manifesto. "We can see the way ahead. We know where we want to go _ and we know why we are stuck."
Johnson won the leadership of Britain's ruling Conservative Party in July with a pledge to deliver Brexit by Oct. 31. But despite negotiating a new deal with the EU, he failed to persuade lawmakers in London to rush the divorce contract into law _ and pushed them into triggering a snap election instead.
The election campaign has turned into a clash between Johnson, who is promising to "get Brexit done" and move on, and opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who is vowing to tax the rich and spend on nationalizing swaths of industry and boosting public services.
Corbyn proposes an 83 billion-pound program of spending, to be paid for by tax raising measures, while Johnson's manifesto outlines a more modest spending plan. Johnson described the Labour agenda put forward by Corbyn and his finance spokesman John McDonnell as "madness" and "a recipe for chaos."
"All Labour governments end with an economic crisis," Johnson told an enthusiastic audience of Tory activists who had traveled through the rain and fog to the launch event in Telford, central England. "The only difference I can see with Corbyn and McDonnell is they want to start with an economic crisis."
The headline pledges in the Tory manifesto include:
To deliver 50,000 more nurses, reinstating maintenance grants during training. This includes 12,500 nurses hired from other countries, and measures to stop existing staff quitting their jobsBringing Johnson's Brexit deal back to Parliament before Christmas, leaving the EU by Jan. 31, and guaranteeing there will be no extension of the transitional period beyond the current cut off of Dec. 31 2020Cutting taxes and guaranteeing there will be no hikes to income tax, value added tax or national insuranceSpending 100 billion on infrastructure over the next five years, financed through government borrowing14 billion pounds of extra funding for schools and a boost for child careBut Johnson ditched several policy options the Tories had previously proposed, including allowing the party's MPs to choose how to vote on ending the ban on fox hunting; tax cuts for relatively wealthy earners; and radically overhauling the way care for elderly people is funded.
'Disappointed'
Paul Johnson, the director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said he was "disappointed" in the Conservatives' commitment not to raise income tax, VAT or national insurance.
"It's tying the hands of the chancellor for the next five years in terms of the most obvious increases you could put into place if you wanted to transparently raise more money," he said, before adding he expects there will be tax increases in other areas outside of the locked three.
He also said the 33.9 billion pounds investment in the NHS should not be considered the biggest boost ever made to the health service, as claimed by the prime minister.
