(Bloomberg) -- The Labour Party reopened its assault on the Conservative government’s plan for the National Health Service, seeking to return one of the biggest issues in British politics to the foreground with less than a month to go before the general election.

Writing in the Observer newspaper, Jeremy Corbyn accused Boris Johnson’s government of holding secret talks with the Trump administration with the aim of opening the U.K. drugs market further to U.S. companies as part of an Anglo-U.S. post-Brexit trade deal. The opening line of his column: “There is a plot against our NHS.”

“Our public services are not bargaining chips to be traded in secret deals,” Corbyn wrote. “I pledge a Labour government will exclude the NHS, medicines and public services from any trade deals -- and make that binding in law.”

Corbyn is trying to maintain the initiative that swung his way last week after his surprise announcement to promise free fiber broadband to the nation. It derailed Johnson’s own plans to assault the air waves, and dominated the national conversation. He even went so far as to compare his proposed new British Broadband company to the post-World War II establishment of the sacred political cow that is the NHS.

That announcement had the added spice of targeting the nationalization of BT Group Plc’s Openreach unit -- Margaret Thatcher, the historical touchstone for many of the Conservative Party faithful, sold off a chunk of the old British Telecommunications in 1984. The sale, she said, was the most important fact behind Britain embracing the concept of shareowning popular capitalism.

Still, the latest polls suggest Corbyn has a lot more work to do before he can overhaul Johnson’s Conservatives come the Dec. 12 polling day.

  • YouGov/Times: Tories (45%) vs Labour (28%). Lead widens to 17 points
  • Opinium: Tories (44%) vs Labour (28%). Lead widens to 16 points
  • Deltapoll/Mail on Sunday: Tories (45%) vs Labour (30%). Lead widens to 15 points
  • Savanta Comres/Telegraph: Tories (41%) vs Labour (33%). Lead narrows to 8 points

According to John Curtice, a professor of politics at Strathclyde University, a 10-point advantage should be enough for the Tories to win an overall parliamentary majority.

Both surveys were taken during a week in which Nigel Farage vowed that his Brexit Party would contest every Labour-held seat in the country, after promising to withdraw his candidates from any Conservative-held constituency.

--With assistance from Cara Moffat.

To contact the reporter on this story: James Ludden in New York at jludden@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Matthew G. Miller at mmiller144@bloomberg.net, Linus Chua

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