IN his first few weeks in office Boris Johnson has been touring the country and witnessing for himself the pain and anguish that the Conservatives and Lib Dems have caused over the last nine years of austerity.

His big answer has been to commit to so many unfunded and uncosted promises that I’m surprised he hasn’t hired a big red bus to list them all on the side of.

But these futile sticking plaster announcements are insulting to our towns when they do not even begin to mask the damage they have caused.

We all know the reason we are currently in the mess we are is because of brutal and incompetent Tory leadership that never has and never will deliver for communities like ours.

The Prime Minister has been talking of recruiting new police officers across the country.

But Greater Manchester alone has lost 1,800 officers from our streets under Conservative governance while violent crime and anti-social behaviour has increased, and our streets feel less safe.

There’s been talk of increasing school funding but just in the Leigh constituency £4m will be cut from primary school budgets and £4.3m cut from secondary school budgets.

Across the country the Government has cut annual school funding by £1.7bn in real terms since 2014-15.

We’ve seen schools closing on Fridays because of staff cuts and even crowdfunding for basic supplies like workbooks.

When St Mary’s Catholic High School wrote to the Education Secretary earlier this year to request a meeting to discuss their real funding concerns, the Conservative Ministers didn’t even have the dignity to meet them.

After they have inflicted this on our schools, we can never trust them to provide the quality education our children deserve.

When it comes to investment and infrastructure, particularly in northern towns like ours, their record is completely indefensible.

Under their control of the economy since 2010, the north west, north east and Yorkshire are the regions with the lowest economic growth across the country.

It’s hardly surprising when they turned off the taps of investment and left proud towns like ours without the transport or business infrastructure we need to succeed.

Holding areas like ours back is what the Tories have always done in Government and there is no reason for us to trust them this time.

To really fix society, get our economy working for the many and equip our public services with the resources they need, only Labour has the credible and costed plan for a fairer Britain.

We have plans for a National Education Service for Regional Investment Banks to give us the powers and funding we need locally.

We want to fix our transport infrastructure, to protect our communities.

We aim to keep the NHS as the national treasure that it is.

All these plans are fully costed in black and white.

The key difference is that Labour will unashamedly ask the top five per cent to pay their fair share and close the tax loopholes that the mega-firms have exploited.