Comment: Nation to judge if manifesto is document of hope or disaster
If Labour's election manifesto proves one thing, it is that Jeremy Corbyn's vision of a kinder, gentler politics is as dead as a Dodo.
While it is no secret that the Labour Party of today is a very different beast from the one Mr Corbyn took over when he uttered those words four years ago, its stance at this election marks a further shift towards the extremities of the hard-left that few would have thought possible.
He calls it radical, and he's spot on.
The last time we saw policies like these Wolfie Smith was trying to steer the Tooting Popular Front into power.
There's £75 billion on new council houses – 150,000 of them a year by the end of the next Parliament – and a four day working week within a decade. Trade unions will be empowered, with workers given a slew of new rights and a seat on the board.
Around £20 billion will be spent on delivering free broadband in a scheme that will see part of BT nationalised, although experts say it will cost five times as much.
The Royal Mail, railways and gas and electricity companies will also be brought into public ownership.
Consideration
All of this will be financed by huge tax rises for the top five per cent of earners, while big business will also be told to cough up.
The Marxists who have cobbled this manifesto together have clearly reasoned that the only way that Labour has a chance of winning this election is to declare class war.
Mr Corbyn's vision is to create a country where being wealthy is a crime. One where succeeding in business and creating jobs is deserving of punishment.
You have to wonder if any consideration has been given to how big companies – who employ tens of thousands of British people – would react to a Labour government?
They will clear out en masse, leaving Mr Corbyn to find out that it is hard to reap in billions from taxing the rich when there are no rich people left to tax.
What then for the more equal society that Labour is trying to create? All the new council homes, the hospital upgrades, the new Sure Start centres and the free social care for the elderly?
This may be a "manifesto of hope" for Mr Corbyn and his followers.
For much of the rest of the country, it is likely to be viewed as a blueprint for Armageddon.
