BORIS Johnson vowed to take Britain on a technological and green revolution in the 2020s.
The PM used his first stump speech of the General Election campaign to unveil his upbeat plan to turbo-charge the nation’s cutting-edge industries.
He promised a multibillion-pound package of Government investment in transformative technologies.
The Tory leader compared Britain to a “racehorse trying to run on three legs” because it has “so much more potential waiting to be unleashed”.
But the PM pointed out it was all dependent on the Conservatives winning a Commons majority and first getting Brexit done.
The skills, innovation and green revolution he unveiled includes:
- TURNING the road network electric by pledging another £500million for car charging points that will ensure every driver is always within 30 miles of one;
- DOUBLING Government grants for company research and development to £18billion by 2024 — taking it to the biggest sum in British history;
- INCREASING offshore wind capacity to 40GW by 2030, including pioneering floating wind turbines. which will also create 9,000 jobs;
- SETTING up an £800million British Advanced Research Projects Agency to fund high risk and reward projects that could change the world;
- PLOUGHING another £800million into carbon capture and storage to help meet the net zero carbon emissions target by 2050;
- INSISTING all contractors who win government infrastructure project contracts must use apprentices.
Mr Johnson’s green push is a bid to woo younger voters who care passionately about climate change — and Lib Dem voters in the hope they will back the Tories to keep out Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.
His major announcements were welcomed by campaigners.
Greenpeace UK’s executive director John Sauven said the offshore wind target’s shift from 30GW to 40GW “is genuinely significant”. And to draw a stark contrast to his rival for power Mr Corbyn, the PM heralded buccaneering businesses.
Mr Johnson addressed factory workers who make electric black cabs at the London Electric Vehicle Company in Coventry.
He told them: “When people get up at the crack of dawn to get their business ready, when people take out a mortgage for a new venture, when people have the guts to put a new product on the market, we don’t sneer, we cheer for them.”
GREEN REVOLUTION
He warned if voters put Mr Corbyn into No10, “Labour would be an economic disaster for this country because they would delay Brexit yet again”.
But if he is allowed to pass his new Brexit deal and take the UK out of the EU on January 31, Boris said: “There is now a pent-up tidal wave of new investment — tens of billions more that could come to this country in the next few months.”
And he urged voters to “imagine what the country could be like in just ten years as a result of the decisions we are taking now”.
He promised it would be “a Britain where the streets are safer, where the air is cleaner”, and “the greatest place to live, to breathe, to be, to raise kids, to start a business — the greatest place on Earth”.
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But the Lib Dems attacked the PM for unveiling his masterplan for the future on the very day that US electric car giant Tesla announced its huge new European factory would be in Germany rather than the UK.
The party’s Brexit spokesman Tom Brake said: “Boris Johnson is giving a speech at an electric car factory the very same day that we find out this industry is being damaged by his Brexit plans. You really couldn’t make it up.”
Labour‘s Shadow Business Secretary Rebecca Long-Bailey said: “There is no greater threat to the car industry than a Tory government. Boris Johnson's claims are absurd given that the Conservatives’ handling of Brexit is already scuppering the UK’s automotive industry.”
Jezza jibe is pulled
BORIS Johnson yesterday withdrew a cheeky joke about Jeremy Corbyn being a political masturbator.
Advisers had released campaign speech extracts accusing the Labour leader of “self-obsession and onanism” — an obscure word for masturbation.
But the passage was missing when Boris made the speech. Asked by The Sun, the giggling PM admitted it was chopped.
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