Jeremy Corbyn delivers a speech as he visits Nelson Library ( Getty Images )
As official figures show the economy flatlining, the Prime Minister says Thursday’s ballot will decide if the country goes forward into growth by resolving Brexit or “back to square one” and a fresh spending crisis under Jeremy Corbyn.
The stakes were revealed by the Office for National Statistics, which said the UK performed below City expectations by failing to grow in October. The three months to October were also stagnant.
With the general election just two days away, Mr Johnson uses his article to argue that a “fragile” coalition led by the Left-wing Labour leader would inflict “profound” damage on economic confidence and hit families with taxes on everything from pay to holidays.
“That’s the true cost of Corbyn and it would take our economy back to square one,” he writes.
“All the hard graft of the last decade, necessary to recover from the last time Labour left the economy in a mess, would be reversed overnight.”
He argued that Mr Corbyn’s promise to potential coalition partner, SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon, of two referendums — on Brexit and Scottish independence — would “prolong the uncertainty and gridlock of the past three and a half years” and chill hopes of an economic revival when Brexit is settled.
“The damage to economic confidence would be profound — as would the impact of Corbyn’s fiscal policy,” Mr Johnson writes.
“There would be new taxes on workers, families, businesses, property, holidays, cars — everyone and everything will be in their sights.”
Labour’s plans for a record spending spree would demolish the great national effort to rebuild the public finances after the 2008 crash under Gordon Brown, Mr Johnson claims.
He says Labour would have no choice but to “jack up taxes” to meet a bill that Tories calculate to be £1.2 trillion, or £2,400 for every taxpayer.
Independent commentators have challenged the costing, saying they include questionable assumptions and also policies that Labour has openly discussed but not included in their manifesto for the next five years.
Mr Johnson adds: “There is a way to avoid this nightmare before Christmas. If, instead, there is a Conservative majority government, we can smash through the gridlock and get this country moving again.
"We can put the constitutional wrangling to bed and focus on the things that matter to people.”
Mr Johnson was taking his battlebus to the West Midlands, another area rich in marginal seats, to answer questions from staff at a Staffordshire plant.
Mr Corbyn visited Blackrod in Bolton on the first of a number of campaign stops across the north-west today.
The Labour leader was trying to keep the spotlight on the controversy over how Jack Williment-Barr, four, had to sleep on the floor while being treated for suspected pneumonia at an NHS hospital in Leeds.
“It’s an example of what’s happening in our NHS. And it is obviously awful for that little boy and the family, the way they were treated,” argued Mr Corbyn.
Challenged on BBC Breakfast if he was making political capital out of the issue, Mr Corbyn insisted: “It does say something about our NHS when...all research shows there’s a very large number of hospitals where patients are at risk because of staff shortages, because of a lack of equipment, because of poor maintenance of hospital buildings. It is a serious issue. It is a political issue, how we fund the NHS.”
The socialist, 70, was also challenged about a report in The Times that claimed he was considered too frail to be PM by some Whitehall officials.
“I’m very healthy, very fit and very active and I’ve travelled more than any other party leader in this election,” he replied. He added: “And I eat porridge every morning — if that’s a help. It’s good for you because it’s slow-burning energy.”
Labour was embarrassed this morning when the Guido Fawkes website obtained a recording of shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth apparently talking candidly with a friend about the party’s “dire” prospects in the election.
Mr Ashworth claimed on the Victoria Derbyshire Show that he was talking to a Tory activist friend in the recording, and dismissed it as “banter”.
The remarks made by Mr Ashworth in the recording included saying the civil service machine would “pretty quickly move to safeguard security” if Mr Corbyn entered Number 10.
In the recording he is asked about the prospects for Labour nationally and he replies that it was “dire” due to the combination of “Corbyn and Brexit”. He goes on to say it is “abysmal out there” and that people “can’t stand Corbyn and they think Labour’s blocked Brexit”.
He is also asked “how long would it take Labour to get its act back together and get rid of Corbyn” if the Tories win a majority. Mr Ashworth replies: “That’s the thing that’s on our minds…I think things can change quickly. I think things change more quickly anyway now.”
Mr Ashworth told the BBC: “I was joshing around with my mate. We’re having banter with each other, we’re joking around.
"No, I don’t mean it because I’m joking around with my mate because he’s a Tory... If you leak it to Guido Fawkes of course it makes me look like a right plonker but it’s not what I mean when I’m winding up a friend — I’m trying to sort of pull his leg a bit.”
Shadow chancellor John McDonnell, responding to the ONS data, said: “We can look forward to five more years of economic failure and stagnation if the Conservatives win the election.”
SNP leader Ms Sturgeon confirmed in an interview with BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that she was ready to prop up a Labour government headed by Mr Corbyn.
“We would offer support to a minority Labour government, the conditions for that we’ve set out very clearly in our manifesto.”
