LONDON, May 28 (Xinhua) -- With just one full week of campaigning left for Britain's snap general election, the political parties Sunday stepped up their battle for votes on June 8.
British elections in recent years have become increasingly "presidential" in style with their strong focus on party leaders. Here are the main party chiefs and their manifestos to win the keys to 10 Downing Street.
Despite the minority parties such as the Liberal Democrats and UK Independence Party (UKIP), the fight for power is mainly between the Conservatives and Labor.
Prime Minister Theresa May has promised strong and stable leadership through Brexit and beyond. The manifesto by the governing Conservative Party also promised real-term increases in National Health Service (NHS) spending to 10 billion U.S. dollars extra per year by 2022, pump an extra 5 billion dollars into schools by then, reduce net migration to below 100,000 and raise the levy on companies employing non-EU migrant workers.
They will also scrap a guaranteed triple-lock annual rise for millions of pensions and only give a current winter fuel allowance worth 384 dollars to the most needy senior citizens.
On the economy, the threshold for paying income tax will be raised and more will be spent on research and development. Reliable, cheap and clean power will get access to industries and businesses. More will be spent on infrastructure construction such as roads, rail, airports and broadband.
The party will maintain its pledge to cut the corporation tax to 17 percent by 2020, reform business rates as well as simplify the tax system for businesses. Their policy will also ensure foreign companies controlling important infrastructure do not undermine British security or essential services.
Britain will spend at least two percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on defense and increase the budget by at least 0.5 percent above inflation in every year of the new parliament. The party also pledged to maintain the overall size of the armed forces and retain the Trident nuclear deterrent.
The current main opposition, the Labor Party headed by Jeremy Corbyn, is campaigning with the slogan "Let's build a fairer Britain where no one is held back." Labor said it aims to offer the public a stark choice at the election, and to stop the system being rigged against by some.
Labor's key policies include scrapping tuition fees, which currently cost students over 11,000 dollars a year to study at the university. They also want to re-nationalize England's water supply companies and re-introduce the 50 percent tax rate for those earning above 158,000 dollars.
They will guarantee the triple-lock pay rise for pensioners, and end zero-hour contracts where more than one million people only get paid if they are given work to do.
On the economy, Labor would open a National Investment Bank to provide 320 billion dollars of lending for infrastructure projects and also create a National Transformation Fund to upgrade the economy. The party would boost the minimum wage to some 13 dollars an hour, and chase income tax dodgers. It also backed developing nuclear energy.
On defense, Labor supported the renewal of the Trident submarine system, though it wanted a complete strategic defense and security review. A Labor government would work with international partners and the United Nations on multilateral disarmament to create a nuclear-free world.
