Jeremy Corbyn’s fully costed plan to boost the NHS budget, provide affordable housing and roll out free superfast internet to all households would have been £17 billion cheaper than Boris Johnson’s latest Moonshot project designed to “save Christmas”.
Mass testing plans that could keep hopes of festive parties alive will cost as much as £100 billion, according to reports released today.
Leaked documents seen by the BMJ suggest that the “Operation Moonshot” project – which would see millions of UK-wide tests carried out daily – could have a price tag close to that of the £114 billion budget given to NHS England in 2018/19.
Boris Johnson believes the scheme could help sport and entertainment venues reopen fully and allow people to socially mix in large groups again with on-the-day tests.
Radical manifesto
The eye-watering costs far exceed the £83 billion costed in Labour’s 2019 general election manifesto, which was described as the most radical in history.
Included within it were plans to increase the NHS budget by 4.3 per cent on average per year and put a ‘lifetime cap’ on the amount people have to pay for social care – two areas which have come under significant scrutiny since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
Mr Corbyn also outlined measures to tackle the housing crisis with the biggest council house building programme since the Second World War, with hundreds of thousands of affordable homes being built.
A ‘green transformation fund’ would see the UK shift towards a green economy, funding renewables, low-carbon energy and transport, wildlife and environmental restoration.
The party also planned to increase school spending by £10.5 billion while scrapping tuition fees at university.
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