Roundup: Election fever could leave UK PM's rivals nursing bruising headache

Rivals to Prime Minister Theresa May's Conservative Party face a trouncing to rival the landslide victory of predecessor Margaret Thatcher a generation ago, according to reports in Britain Sunday.

Sunday newspapers and political programs on television shows have become the traditional battleground for battling politicians.

The Sunday Express reported May is on course to break Thatcher's 1983 record and win 398 seats at the June 8 snap general election. That, says the newspaper, would give her a "thumping" overall majority in the House of Commons of 147.

The report suggests Jeremy Corbyn's main opposition Labour Party is predicted to win only 157 seats, the party's worst result since the 1930s.

Bookmakers, taking wagers on the election outcome. say a Labour victory is less likely than the England football team winning the next World Cup, adds the Express.

The report will make grim reading for Corbyn who has spent the weekend responding to a report in the Guardian newspaper Saturday in which Labour's deputy leader Tom Watson warned of a Thatcher-style landslide for the Conservatives if his party fails to turn around current poll numbers. Watson said Labour had a mountain to climb to catch up with the Conservatives ahead of the June 8 vote.

Corbyn sought to play down Watson's concerns, saying Labour was not admitting defeat. He said he and Watson were working flat out to get Labour MPs elected.

May, meanwhile, continued her charm offensive towards traditional Labour voters Sunday by vowing to see a multi-million dollar program of social house building.

A housing shortage and rising rents are preventing thousands of people from getting onto the so-called housing ladder.

At one time local town and city council built vast estates of low-rent council housing, aimed mainly at working class families.

May says the Conservatives will pave the way for a new generation of social housing if they win the general election, a pledge attacked by Labour as "political spin with no substance". Instead Labour says if it wins, it will build a million new homes, half of them available for affordable rents.

Labour said Sunday it would raise billions of pounds for public services with a new tax on financial transactions, closing a loophole that would raise 26 billion pounds (33.5 billion U.S. dollars) over the lifetime of the next government.

The media has already labelled it a Robin Hood tax, named after the famous character who took from the rich to give to the poor.

Liberal Democrat veteran, the former Coalition government Business Secretary Vince Cable described Labour's economy policy more "Mickey Mouse" than Robin Hood.

In a radio interview Sunday Cable said the Labour will spell out Tuesday how it will pay for its election promises, when it finally publishes its election manifesto, its aims and plans for the next five years if it gains control of 10 Downing Street.

Tom Newton Dunn, political editor of Britain's top selling newspaper, the Sun, predicted Sunday that the Conservative election manifesto will be publishing this coming Thursday.

He said it will be the biggest day in politics for the next five years, as Theresa May lays out precisely what she wants to do over the lifetime of the next government.

"Finally, after all thus guessing and theorising we'll finally know what Mrs May is all about," said Dunn.

Meanwhile Nicola Sturgeon's Scottish Nationalist Party will lose seats in the Westminster parliament on June 8, according to some political commentators Sunday. Endit