The Yorkshire Post says: Conservative complacency over Jeremy Corbyn and £1.3bn bus boost

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has promised to invest £1.3bn a year in bus services.Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has promised to invest £1.3bn a year in bus services.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has promised to invest £1.3bn a year in bus services.
TORY complacency over Jeremy Corbyn, and his electoral credibility, is further exposed by the Labour leader’s promise to invest £1.3bn a year in bus services.

For, while Conservative MPs are, once again, at loggerheads over how best to force an embattled Theresa May to step aside, the Opposition is setting the policy agenda by focusing on those issues which matter to voters.

And although such announcements will resonate with those communities which have witnessed cuts to bus services, the Government is in such disarray that it is in no place to scrutinise the viability of this pledge.

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It should not be like this. Having committed Labour to reversing cuts to made to 3,000 bus routes since the Tories came to power nine years ago, Mr Corbyn is duty-bound to explain how his party intends to fund an additional £1.3bn each year for the foreseeable future – and the number of passengers that are required to make services viable.

The questions – and they’re sincere ones – do not end here. Given Labour intends to use money from Vehicle Excise Duty which was intended to fund road improvements, a responsible Opposition would be listing the schemes that will not be going ahead as a result of this change of investment.

And, finally, Labour should be explaining how its plans to bring bus services back into public ownership will pave the way for the introduction of modern vehicles which are less-polluting. If Mr Corbyn’s announcement is a genuine attempt to transform public transport, he should have no problem providing the answers that taxpayers have a right to expect.

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