NATALIE BENNETT pitched Green policies as the “model of an end to Thatcherism” yesterday as she launched her party’s manifesto.

Speaking at London’s Arcola Theatre, she said that ending austerity and restoring public services were at the heart of the Greens’ offer to voters on May 7.

A pledge to create one million more jobs by investing an extra £177 billion a year in health, housing and energy were among ambitious plans outlined by Ms Bennett.

She proudly described rail renationalisation as “one of our most popular policies.”

And as Tory PM David Cameron revealed plans for the revival of Thatcher’s social housing sell-off, the Greens pledged to abolish the right to buy and build 500,000 more social homes.

“This is a new kind of politics,” said Ms Bennett, standing alongside Britain’s first Green MP Caroline Lucas.

“The end of politics of the usual. The business-as-usual politics that accepts the economy and society being run for the benefit of the few, not for the many.”

At the launch of the Greens’ election campaign in February, Ms Bennett, by her own admission, had a torrid time trying to explain how the party’s pledges would be funded.

The possibility of a similar slip-up saw the press pack descend on the Arcola Theatre.

In a fitting parallel, the final rehearsals of Clarion, a new play satirising the worst of British journalism, were taking place downstairs.

This time though, Ms Bennett came armed with a fully costed manifesto.

A new wealth tax on individuals with assest over £3 million would raise £25bn, while a Robin Hood tax and the closure of tax loopholes were among other measures the Greens say would pull in £198bn for the Treasury by 2020.

Channel 4’s Michael Crick could only complain that the Greens did not plan to borrow enough — £21bn — to end austerity.

While Ms Bennett set out the Greens’ social policies, the job of appealing to the party’s grassroots was left to Ms Lucas.

She revealed that its flagship environmental policy of the election campaign was a £45bn scheme to insulate 9 million homes over the next five years.

And she said: “Tackling the environmental crisis isn’t a distraction from the economic difficulties we face — it’s the way out of them.”