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When you vote today we ask you to think of the future.

We ask you to think about what country you would like to live in and your children and grandchildren would like to live in.

To think of whether you want well-run, properly-funded public services.

To think of whether you want a nation that offers opportunity for all, regardless of their wealth and background.

A country where everyone should have the right to a secure job that pays a decent wage.

And to think about whether you want to live in a country that is more equal, harmonious and prosperous.

This was an election called by a Prime Minister for the most low-serving of reasons but it offers you the opportunity to change the country for the better.

(Image: Rex Features)

Theresa May went to the polls on a phoney prospectus.

She claimed to offer strong and stable leadership and portrayed herself as the only candidate able to deliver Brexit .

It is an indication of the disdain with which Mrs May treats the electorate that she believed we would swallow her trite slogans if they are repeated frequently enough.

The Tory leader has been rumbled by this election.

She has been exposed for what she is: evasive, limited and indecisive.

Someone who is so insecure that she chickened out of TV debates.

This is the Prime Minister who ruled out a snap poll six times before suddenly calling one.

A Prime Minister who voted Remain before reinventing herself as an arch Brexiteer, who ditched the centrepiece of her Budget at the first whiff of resistance and who will go down in history for ripping up her own manifesto in the middle of an election campaign.

The fiasco of the Conservatives’ plans for a Dementia Tax proved that far from being strong and stable, Mrs May is weak and wobbly.

Don’t be fooled by her warm words about promising to end the burning injustices in our society or being on the side of the just about managing.

The Prime Minister’s voting record, whether on the Bedroom Tax, fox hunting or cuts to disability benefits, is a better indication of her true beliefs.

She has neither the imagination nor the inclination to understand the reality of life for so many people in 21st century Britain.

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The Britain of foodbanks, shoddy housing and rising child poverty has never been pertinent to the Tories during the last six years and there is no indication they will be in the next five.

For all the vacuous rhetoric, the Conservative manifesto was a threadbare document which offered no great vision for the country and used weasel words to disguise an agenda which will mean less money for schools and hospitals, further cuts to local government and a tax policy skewed towards the rich.

While state schools are having to beg parents for funds, Mrs May’s priority is an unnecessary expansion of grammar and free schools.

When the NHS is facing its worst funding crisis since its foundation in 1948, Tory Cabinet ministers are still promising further tax cuts for the very wealthy.

With a shameful record to defend and no offer for the future, the Tories have resorted to a campaign based on fear and cynicism.

If Labour’s platform had been a litany of complaints about the Tory failings that would not have sufficed. Thankfully, the opposition has dared to be bold.

Ignore the Tory smears about Labour living in la-la land.

Its fully-costed manifesto sets out how modest tax rises on the wealthiest 5% will pay towards the much-needed investment in health and education.

There will be £2billion more for social care, £6.3billion more for education and £2.5billion invested in skills.

(Image: Griffin)

An ambitious investment scheme will help kick start the economy and boost regional growth.

Houses will be built.

Students will not be penalised by the burden of huge debts. Nurses, teachers and other public servants will get a pay rise.

And the country will be kept safe by the recruitment of 10,000 more police officers.

For those in insecure or temporary jobs there will a £10 national living wage and an end to zero hours contracts.

The country will regain control of its water and railways instead of allowing French and German state firms to enrich themselves off the backs of commuters and consumers.

This paper has not shied from criticising Jeremy Corbyn for his shortcomings.

Nor have we ignored that Labour went into this election on the back of two fractious leadership contests.

But when the country needed the party to come together it has done so.

(Image: Getty)

Mr Corbyn has grown in confidence throughout the campaign and shown remarkable resilience and dignity in the face of the ruthlessly hostile right-wing media.

Labour offers the country an optimistic future.

Its agenda can heal wounds, redress inequality and put the country back on the path to prosperity.

The alternative is another Tory government that is blind to injustice, myopic about the challenges ahead and uncaring about those left behind.

We face the prospect of a brittle Prime Minister at the mercy of her party’s right, who blinks at the first sign of hostility and has neither the ambition nor vision to meet the challenges we face.

Only a vote for Labour can stop this. Only a vote for Labour will lead to a better future.