The Labour Party's General Election campaign for Camborne, Redruth and Hayle launched into full swing yesterday evening.

The message from Paul Farmer, Labour’s prospective parliamentary candidate for Camborne, Redruth and Hayle, at a packed Donald Thomas Centre in Camborne, was clear: "We’ve had enough of going backwards, we want our future back!”

He said: “Austerity is not over for the country and, certainly, not over for the people of Cornwall. It is a fact that this constituency has some of the highest levels of deprivation in the country with families having to rely on food banks.

"In the past week, Cornwall Council announced it is going to cut £1.5 million from its budget from special schools - and that is on top of a budget that, between 2010 and 2019, has lost almost 60p out of every £1 provided by the Government for local services.

“Ours is a constituency where we see the terrible effects of Conservative austerity: where homeless ex-servicemen and women suffering from PTSD are forced to sleep on the streets; and where the terrible iniquities of Universal Credit are felt on a daily basis. Cornwall will have to deal with the consequences of Conservative central government funding cuts and austerity for years to come”.

He added: “Labour also has fully costed plans for a new National Education Service that will revolutionise education in the same way as the NHS revolutionised our health service. We have plans for restoring all of our services, for an integrated transport network, regional investment and, most importantly of all, a plan to tackle the climate emergency. Labour’s New Green Industrial Revolution will rebuild our communities in an environmentally sustainable way”.

Paul said he is hopeful that there is a better future in which "our lives and the lives of our children, can be, and will be, better".