This week a new Tory leader will be announced; our next Prime Minister, chosen by Conservative party members.

We have a good idea who it will be.

But either way, we know their first priority will be looking after their rich friends and wealthy supporters.

For the past four weeks the two contenders have been conducting an increasingly absurd debate about who will give another £10 billion-plus tax break to the richest in society.

They’re talking about a different country to the one I live in.

Nine years of Tory and Lib Dem governments have left us one of the most divided in Europe.

A short walk around almost any town or city should make that clear.

Homeless people sleeping rough, begging for change to pay for their next meal, while the wealthiest drive by in expensive cars.

Teachers stressed out, desperately trying to keep their school going without sufficient funds.

Young people either unable to leave the parental home or paying exorbitant rents in the private rented sector, unable to save, feeling trapped.

Parents worrying about their children’s future, while graduates start their working lives with debts of £50,000.

The closed libraries, swimming pools and youth centres all tell their own story.

This is the toxic legacy of Theresa May.

(Image: Getty Images)

Under pressure, the Tory leadership candidates have acknowledged that schools, hospitals, social care and the police don’t have enough money – as if the last nine years in government had nothing to do with them.

So the first test for the next Prime Minister must be to do what Theresa May promised, but failed to deliver: end austerity.

But on the campaign trail the candidates have been more interested in trying to prove their virility by threatening a No Deal exit from the EU.

That is reckless. No Deal would trash our industries – from car manufacturing to farming.

It would raise food prices and cause medicine shortages in the NHS.

(Image: PA)

The reality is they want a sweetheart deal with Donald Trump as the basis of for our future trade. But the US administration’s priority is well known to all: it’s America First.

When Theresa May invited Trump to dine with the Queen, he named his price: the opening up of our NHS for takeover by American corporations.

So the second test for whoever becomes the next Prime Minister is: do they have the confidence to put No Deal, or any damaging Tory deal, to a public vote?

The third test is whether they’re prepared to take the necessary action to tackle the climate emergency.

I know what Labour will do: we will kick start a Green Industrial Revolution to deliver new jobs in green industries that will help us halt the slide into climate breakdown.

At the current rate of progress, this government’s pledge to get to net zero carbon emissions won’t be met until 2099 – more than fifty years too late.

We cannot wait that long. The science is clear and indisputable – we need to reduce our emissions now and fast. Air pollution is right now killing 40,000 people a year in the UK.

At a time of climate crisis, investment in renewables is actually falling.

The Tories scrapped the solar feed-in tariff, virtually banned onshore wind, and they failed to invest in the Swansea tidal lagoon.

Instead they back fracking – you really couldn’t make it up.

Britain is a wonderfully diverse society and a wealthy country. But we are also a desperately unequal one.

The fifth richest country in the world should not be a place of food banks and rough sleepers.

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Let us give hope, not despair - and unite not divide.

So much is possible, but it needs a transforming Labour Government to end austerity, resolve the Brexit chaos and address the climate emergency - so we can give the British people the future they deserve.