London: With a month to go before the United Kingdom votes for its next government, Prime Minister Theresa May set out to woo "middle England" on prime-time television, while her main rival Jeremy Corbyn rallied his socialist comrades in Britain's industrial heartlands.
Mrs May's first joint interview with husband Philip on Tuesday was a chance for her to give voters a rarely seen softer side. The couple discussed her taste in shoes, how they fell in love at university and disclosed that while she cooks, he takes out the trash.
"There's boy jobs and girl jobs you see," Mrs May announced on the sofa of The One Show, a BBC evening program that regularly attracts 5 million viewers.
Earlier in the day in Trafford, north-west England, Mr Corbyn launched his Labour Party's program for government with a blistering tirade against "greedy bankers" and heartless bosses who are "ripping off workers and consumers."
The contrast is revealing. It reflects Mrs May's decision to put herself at the centre of her party's campaign for re-election, and Mr Corbyn's choice to shun the conventional playbook of centre-ground politics and appeal to populist anger at Britain's elites.
On Wednesday, a copy of the Labour party's manifesto was leaked, with the BBC reporting it contained "policies on nationalising railways" and parts of the energy industry, scrapping tuition fees, extra spending on social welfare and measures to strengthen trade union rights, and a deal to leave the European Union.
On June 8, voters will be asked to choose who they want to lead the UK through complex and potentially acrimonious negotiations on leaving the EU and to shape the country's future beyond Brexit.
While Mrs May's Conservatives are about 20-points ahead of Mr Corbyn's Labour Party in recent opinion polls, her campaign has been derided for being too tightly controlled, with few unscripted encounters with ordinary members of the public. Critics have described her performances as stilted and robotic.
On Wednesday, she said if elected she would "put Britain's national security first" and raise the defence budget by at least 0.5 per cent above inflation each year.
"Under my leadership the Conservatives will ensure that the brave men and women of our Armed Forces have the equipment and resources they need to keep our country safe - and that we meet our obligations to the world. But a strong military is only possible with a strong economy."
But in his first campaign appearance, Mrs May's financier husband offered viewers a different insight into the woman running Britain, in what Tories hoped would bring a rigidly businesslike politician to life.
He said his wife first told him she wanted to become prime minister more than seven years ago, before the Tories won power under David Cameron's leadership in 2010.
For her part, Mrs May said that while the couple live in the apartment above the Prime Minister's official residence in Downing Street, they like to go "home" for the weekends, where she keeps a large collection of cookery books.
"Theresa's a very good cook indeed actually," said Philip May, adding that while there isn't a downside to being the Prime Minister's husband, "if you're the kind of man who expects his tea to be on the table at six o'clock every evening, you could be a little bit disappointed."
About 320 kilometres north of Downing Street, Mr Corbyn was introduced by a soap opera actress as the man who "gives a toss".
"I say to the tax cheats, the rip-off bosses and the greedy bankers: enough is enough," he told an audience of party activists in Trafford.
At a later Corbyn speech in nearby Salford, retired teacher Paul Gerrard said Mr Corbyn is the Labour leader he'd dreamed of, but had long ago given up hope of ever seeing. "He's opened up a debate in this country for the first time in 30 years. The angrier he sounds, the firmer he is on socialist policies, the more likely he is to win the election."
Since 1983, when the party suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of Margaret Thatcher, Labour has avoided talk of socialism, seeking to win voters back from the Conservatives by offering moderation.
The party now plans to hike the corporation tax by more than a third over the next three years, and "reverse the Conservatives' tax giveaways to big business".
Not everyone was impressed. On the edge of a crowd in Salford a heckler could be heard shouting "Unelectable! He's forgotten about the white working class."
It's voters like this that Mrs May is hoping to attract, with her promise to take on the EU in Brexit negotiations. The signs are she's succeeding.
Even Maurice Glasman, once a key adviser to Mr Corbyn's predecessor Ed Miliband, has held talks with May's chief-of-staff Nick Timothy in her Downing Street offices, the Financial Times reported.
Bloomberg; Telegraph, London
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