Smith Wants To 'Smash' May 'Back On Her Heels'

Owen Smith has sparked anger after saying that he was upset Labour did not have the power to "smash" Theresa May "back on her heels".

The Labour leadership contender used the phrase as he delivered a speech about equality, immediately prompting accusations of sexism.

However, when questioned about his choice of language, he robustly defended his comments and said "it was a piece of rhetoric from me and we should be smashing the Tories back on their heels".

He added he "didn't literally want to smash Theresa May back, I'm not advocating violence in any way" and he denied that it was a sexist comment.

He said that Mrs May should reflect on the way austerity policies have "smashed" the people - and those worse affected have been women.

Mr Smith came under fire for using a domestic violence analogy in 2010 in an online article he wrote in which he said: "Surely, the Liberals will file for divorce as soon as the bruises start to show through the make-up?"

Speaking on the highly symbolic site of the former Orgreave coking plant in South Yorkshire, Mr Smith set out a wide-ranging vision as next Labour prime minister offering a £3bn wealth tax, a 4% a year increase in spending on the NHS and the return of the 50p tax rate to pay for it.

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He promised to restore public services, which he said had been "smashed" by Tories austerity policies, re-opening libraries and reducing school class sizes.

He said his government would scrap the Department Work and Pensions, which had become a "byword for cruelty and insecurity", and replace it with the Ministry for Labour to ensure protection for worker and quality jobs.

In an attempt to appeal to voters in the traditional Labour heartlands of the North where voters have been leaking to UKIP he vowed to end inequality and bring "fair employment, fair taxes and fair funding".

He also pledged to:

:: Introduce modern wage councils to agree pay and conditions

:: Set up a wage council to deal with under pay in the care sector

:: Ban on zero-hours contracts

:: Reverse cuts to Inheritance Tax and Capital Gains Tax

:: Bring forward High Speed 3 and invest billions in the North

:: Build 300,000 homes a year under his £200bn infrastructure fund

:: Repeal the Trade Union Act

:: Introduce a modern equal pay act.

The former shadow work and pensions secretary said that the country had become "angry and intolerant" because they feel the "system is rigged against them".

And he said: "They are right to be angry. Right to be angry that eight years after the financial crisis we're still being asked to pay the price."

He said there was anger because not a single banker was jailed after the economic crisis and anger because the billionaire Sir Philip Green, criticised for his role in the fall of the high street giant BHS, had bought a second yacht.

Mr Smith said that the UK had become the "sick man of Europe" for workers' rights and that he had "had enough of it".

Mr Corbyn's team have pointed out that the Labour leader announced he would introduce a Ministry for Labour last August.

Mr Smith has never denied that many of his policies are the same as Mr Corbyn's, however, his argument is that the Labour leader has failed to make his case to the public.

Mr Smith said a YouGov poll in the Times newspaper on Wednesday suggesting 2.7 million Labour voters would rather vote for Mrs May than Labour should act as a "wake-up call".