British Prime Minister Theresa May maintained her strong lead in opinion polls ahead of next month's national election, with one analyst saying she was on course for the kind of huge success Margaret Thatcher enjoyed over 30 years ago. May is asking voters to strengthen her hand as she seeks a mandate for her plan to implement the result of last year's Brexit referendum by quitting the European Union's single market. Her Conservative Party made big gains in local elections last Thursday at the expense of the main opposition Labour party and polls published at the weekend, conducted beforehand, showed her with a commanding lead of up to 19 percentage points.
May has a working majority of less than 20 seats in the 650-seat parliament but polling analysts have predicted she could increase that number by as many as 100 at the June 8 election. "… as the local elections showed, they are … are on course for the type of victory last seen by (Labour's) Tony Blair and Margaret Thatcher when they were at their peaks," said Adrian Drummond of pollsters Opinium.
Opinium had the Conservatives 16 percentage points ahead of Labour on 46 to 30 percent of those surveyed but another poll by YouGov for the Sunday Times newspaper put them 19 points clear, a six-point increase over last week. An ORB poll had the Conservatives extending their lead over Labour by four points to 15 percent. Thatcher, Britain's first woman prime minister, was one of the Conservatives' most dominant leaders of the post-war years between 1979 and 1990. Blair, Britain's longest-serving Labour prime minister, was in office between 1997 and 2007. May Pledged an extra 10,000 staff to work in NHS mental health services – without saying how they will be funded. In her first spending announcement of the election campaign, the Prime Minister will also pledge to overhaul a 34-year-old Mental Health Act to tackle "discrimination and overuse of detention". And people suffering from problems such as depression, anxiety and bipolar disorder will be promised beefed-up protection against discrimination at work.
"On my first day in Downing Street last July, I described shortfalls in mental health services as one of the burning injustices in our country," May said. "It is abundantly clear to me that the discriminatory use of a law passed more than three decades ago is a key part of the reason for this.
"So today I am pledging to rip up the 1983 Act and introduce in its place a new law which finally confronts the discrimination and unnecessary detention that takes place too often. "We are going to roll out mental health support to every school in the country, ensure that mental health is taken far more seriously in the workplace, and raise standards of care with 10,000 more mental health professionals working in the NHS by 2020."
Meanwhile, there are now more UK-based billionaires than at any time in history despite fears over Brexit, according to the Sunday Times Rich List. This year's list found the wealthiest 1,000 individuals and families have a record total wealth of £658bn, up 14 percent up from last year's
figure of £575bn.