As I did last time, a thread for links to the manifestos, important election documents that should be easy to access for political arguments/reminding yourself of what the parties are standing for this time around. I'll add in links as they get released - and if I miss any of the smaller regional ones, feel free to inform me.

 

Conservatives: Clear Plan | Bold Action | Secure Future

 

Labour: Change

 

Liberal Democrats: For A Fair Deal

 

Greens: Real Hope, Real Change

 

Reform: Our Contract With You ED: not a manifesto

 

Plaid Cymru: For Fairness, For Ambition, For Wales

 

SNP: TBA

 

potentially adding NI parties, Workers Party and possibly others if there are any that are notable enough

Liberal Democrats manifesto: https://www.libdems.org.uk/manifesto

 

Conservatives manifesto: https://public.conservatives.com/static/doc...esto-GE2024.pdf

 

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The first sentence of the Tory one: "We are restoring our economic stability after Covid and Ukraine." TAKE ACCOUNTABILITY!

cackling at the Tory manifesto tagline being 'clear plan'

 

I probably won't take the time to read all of that one given it has such little chance of being implemented and unlike the smaller parties, isn't even going to be particularly pleasant reading

cackling at the Tory manifesto tagline being 'clear plan'

 

I probably won't take the time to read all of that one given it has such little chance of being implemented and unlike the smaller parties, isn't even going to be particularly pleasant reading

 

I was about to (curious to see the BS) but that first line put me off. :lol:

Green Party Manifesto: https://greenparty.org.uk/about/our-manifesto/

 

Certainly some things that look great in paper (Ceasefire, scrapping tuition fees and Ofsted, Animal protection, actually paying Junior Doctors!!), sadly, as I've got older, my thoughts have gone from great idealism to 'how on Earth are you going to pay for this'. Think Lib Dems have the better left-leaning manifesto.

 

I'm just waiting for Count Binface's one tbh x

Ironically the Green manifesto loses me on the climate, their anti-nuclear energy stance just isn't it and it's symbolic of the general feeling of 'well intentioned but not well thought out' that I get with their policies - same with the incongruity of protecting green spaces yet also building masses of new homes (where?).

 

I think they are saying the right things on the economy and work, we don't have enough political space given over to the radical overhauls needed to make work fair and properly tax capital, but they aren't going to get a fair hearing with the costs that are being tossed out here. And that foreign policy section, whew, bit hardline on the nuclear disarmament point (as much as I want that eventually) but the foreign aid point is vital and very undertalked about considering our entire national debate is frozen up over migration.

Added in the Labour and Plaid Cymru manifesto, so we now have every UK-wide manifesto from the major parties* with just the SNP to go linked in the first post with their tagline.

 

*In my criteria for recognition the burgeoning seeds of turquoise fascism in a Farage-shaped trenchcoat is not a major party until their results match their polling and/or they get a website that doesn't look like a scam haven

Labour looks grand.

 

Tories firstly crap, secondly full of what looks like lies, thirdly is once again attacking minorities and trying to create moral panic. Just unprofessional and embarrassing for a once respected party.

Really impressed with Labour's manifesto. Quite balanced with a lot of policies which should help improve the lives of many people across the UK. I can see Labour staying in power if they implement their manifesto well, even if it's only ~50% of it by the end of their term in government.

 

Really like a number of policies from the Lib Dems and Greens as well. Hoping we'll get a Labour government with a Lib Dem opposition and the greens getting their 2nd MP.

Must say I’m pretty shocked that Labour didn’t have anything new at all. It was basically no real change from what we have now. A few little things here and there but overall I don’t see much appealing there. Lib Dem’s have a much better manifesto in my opinion

Edited June 13, 20241 yr by Liam sota

The Tory manifesto is clearly one written on the knowledge that there is no chance that they will be expected to deliver it. It is purely aimed at trying to win over voters who don’t bother to look beyond the headlines.

 

The idea that Capital Gains Tax should not be payable if a landlord sells a property to a tenant sounds quite reasonable - for about ten seconds, before you start to think of all the loopholes.

 

The Labour manifesto is aimed at not frightening off voters. It is also a set of policies chosen so that they have a decent chance of entering the next election able to claim that they have delivered on their manifesto promises. Given the low level of trust in politicians, that is important.

 

The Lib Dem manifesto is a bit like Liberal manifestos before the SDP came along. There are some great ideas in there, but the party won’t form a majority government and it is unlikely to be part of a coalition. However, some of the policies are aimed at opening a debate. If past experience is anything to go by, other parties will steal some of those policies and claim all the credit.

The Tory manifesto is clearly one written on the knowledge that there is no chance that they will be expected to deliver it. It is purely aimed at trying to win over voters who don’t bother to look beyond the headlines.

 

The idea that Capital Gains Tax should not be payable if a landlord sells a property to a tenant sounds quite reasonable - for about ten seconds, before you start to think of all the loopholes.

 

The Labour manifesto is aimed at not frightening off voters. It is also a set of policies chosen so that they have a decent chance of entering th elect election able to claim that they have delivered on their manifesto promises. Given the low level of trust in politicians, that is important.

 

The Lib Dem manifesto is a bit like Liberal manifestos before the SDP came along. There are some great ideas in there, but the party won’t form a majority government and it is unlikely to be part of a coalition. However, some of the policies are aimed at opening a debate. If past experience is anything to go by, other parties will steal some of those policies and claim all the credit.

 

That's it in a nutshell isn't it - Labour's manifesto is middle of the road, but actually reading the headlines it seems really sensible and a steadying of the shop moment. Yeah sure, there's a few things in there that I am not sure they can raise the money for etc. but it's a sensible manifesto which shows enough ambition, without holding themselves to full account if they are unable to deliver. With the way it's pitched there's room for further ambition too and certainly I can see the Lib Dems pushing agendas on Labour to be bolder.

 

Seems loads of people want to criticise the manifesto, when actually, there's some really good things in there that are broad appealing and ultimately should make the country better for everyone.

Must say I’m pretty shocked that Labour didn’t have anything new at all. It was basically no real change from what we have now. A few little things here and there but overall I don’t see much appealing there. Lib Dem’s have a much better manifesto in my opinion

 

That’s because the Lib Dem’s won’t possibly have to implement their manifesto and if they are the power brokers in a unlikely once every 50 years hung parliament they would ditch it all happily for ministerial power just like in 2010!

 

There is new things in the Labour manifesto - the GB Energy company is a great idea imo but depends how to implement it!

Labour's manifesto is laughable, total lack of ambition and nothing vaguely resembling a party left-wing enough for me to consider voting. 'sensible' is one way of putting it, watered-down/unambitious/pandering is another

Having read it in detail, there are some things I like - Nationalising Energy, Riverside walks and increasing Mayoral powers to improve public transport, and I really like the emphasis on more skills based, apprenticeship courses for young people with disabilities to get them into work, as these are really lacking at the minute and I'm seeing the day to day effects clearly.

 

Yet it's all rather vague, and this is what I worried about, and doesn't really suggest a huge changing of the status quo. It sounds more promising and I have no doubt why this is being done, as they are all but guaranteed to win and this is an easy way to get both political spectrums on side without lurching too radically either way, but it doesn't give me much confidence that things will change ultimately and they won't get flack in five years time for not delivering all of this thus paving the way for a more populist right alternative.

That’s because the Lib Dem’s won’t possibly have to implement their manifesto and if they are the power brokers in a unlikely once every 50 years hung parliament they would ditch it all happily for ministerial power just like in 2010!

 

There is new things in the Labour manifesto - the GB Energy company is a great idea imo but depends how to implement it!

The Lib Dems did not ditch all their manifesto in 2010. Increased personal allowance, pupil premium, pensions triple lock, all prominently featured in the manifesto, all implemented.

 

The 2010 manifesto was clearly written in the expectation of a hung parliament, meanin g that some of it could actually be implemented. As I said above, there is no such expectation this time and the manifesto reflects that.

All not very radical ideas and we all know what they will be remembered for….

There's some good stuff in the Labour manifesto, partly because we all knew about rail nationalisation and Great British Energy (dumb name) before it doesn't seem as radical even though those would be radical policies to us if they came out of the blue. The housebuilding target is decent, even if I'm sceptical of how they'll get that done, that's needed.

 

There's also some very not good stuff, like their proposal to just keep the disgusting benefits system as punitive as it currently is or the lack of scrapping the two-child benefit. Or the rather tepid targets on the NHS beyond all the nice words about it; and they really are not promising to spend anywhere near the amount that is necessary to right the ship. You can go on about how the country can't afford it but it's just necessary, transformative past Labour governments have invested in the country's future and I don't get the sense they're doing that, it feels like their aim is to get into power and tinker around a bit for 5 years without a plan for keeping it all going beyond that.

There's some good stuff in the Labour manifesto, partly because we all knew about rail nationalisation and Great British Energy (dumb name) before it doesn't seem as radical even though those would be radical policies to us if they came out of the blue. The housebuilding target is decent, even if I'm sceptical of how they'll get that done, that's needed.

 

There's also some very not good stuff, like their proposal to just keep the disgusting benefits system as punitive as it currently is or the lack of scrapping the two-child benefit. Or the rather tepid targets on the NHS beyond all the nice words about it; and they really are not promising to spend anywhere near the amount that is necessary to right the ship. You can go on about how the country can't afford it but it's just necessary, transformative past Labour governments have invested in the country's future and I don't get the sense they're doing that, it feels like their aim is to get into power and tinker around a bit for 5 years without a plan for keeping it all going beyond that.

 

Because, aside from the Attlee government, all of those labour governments inherited economies with debt to GDP ratios of less than 50% - plenty of room for them to borrow and spend in order to better people's lives. Whereas currently labour will inherit the worst debt to gdp ratio since the second world war. And unlike the 1950s where a number of factors aligned to have the debt to gdp ratio fall quite quickly, that isn't something that any government will be able to do via spending currently. Additionally, last year the UK government paid over £100 billion on interest of the government debt, ~4.4% of GDP which is a record.

 

The unfortunate reality is that unless you want to pull a Liz Truss and scare the financial markets, Labour don't have much choice but to keep spending fairly restrictive. I believe they will be able to commit to spending more once the economy grows some more and the debt to gdp ratio decreases. Likely their second term will be more transformative than their first. I think for the moment it's a case of trying to better people's lives without spending too much in their first term and then hopefully people will feel the benefit from this to vote them in for another term.

 

Although they could adopt policies similar to the greens to create a small wealth tax to raise additional money for spending.

Edited June 14, 20241 yr by Envoirment

Because, aside from the Attlee government, all of those labour governments inherited economies with debt to GDP ratios of less than 50% - plenty of room for them to borrow and spend in order to better people's lives. Whereas currently labour will inherit the worst debt to gdp ratio since the second world war. And unlike the 1950s where a number of factors aligned to have the debt to gdp ratio fall quite quickly, that isn't something that any government will be able to do via spending currently. Additionally, last year the UK government paid over £100 billion on interest of the government debt, ~4.4% of GDP which is a record.

 

The unfortunate reality is that unless you want to pull a Liz Truss and scare the financial markets, Labour don't have much choice but to keep spending fairly restrictive. I believe they will be able to commit to spending more once the economy grows some more and the debt to gdp ratio decreases. Likely their second term will be more transformative than their first. I think for the moment it's a case of trying to better people's lives without spending too much in their first term and then hopefully people will feel the benefit from this to vote them in for another term.

 

Although they could adopt policies similar to the greens to create a small wealth tax to raise additional money for spending.

 

Yeah, and we now have the biggest change to normal life since WW2 to recover from. Which puts the onus on the next Labour government almost as much as it did Attlee's. Also similarly to Attlee, it's likely that there will be unusually friendly consensus in the Commons to action whatever is needed - like extra wealth taxes indeed should be easy to get through if they want it.

 

I don't accept the whole comparison of Liz Truss to every government overspend (and in particular so many people imagine that the same thing would have happened to any hypothetical Corbyn government whereas I am confident that with McDonnell by his side that would not have happened), not all government spending is created equal - so many people (and the media!) seem to miss this distinction, the reasons the markets crashed were not because Truss was spending money, but that she was spending money in a moronic fashion that deprived the government and people of all future wealth on a hypothetical. You have to spend money to make money and you certainly have to do so when public services are underfunded and crying out for more investments. To give an easy example, lifting the two-child benefit cap. That doesn't cost so much in the grand scheme of things, and saves a lifetime of money with better educated and healthy individuals, but because Labour are scared of promising anything that might give the right-wing papers a line on welfare queens, it gets left out, to the detriment of the country. Not spending money is a political choice, it's never something you simply can't do.

 

There is room - there is not always room for everything granted, but there is room for a great deal more than what this stolid, staid manifesto is promising, in investment in education, health, public services that would lead to growth and a more productive and wealthy country in the long run. They're baby steps. The past 2 Labour manifestos were criticised for promising too much, but had they been elected, I am confident that they would have been well received by the markets and set us on a path to a growing economy, despite Tory paper protestations. This in comparison promises nearly nothing.

 

In the interview just now with Nick Robinson, Keir Starmer promised that we wouldn't go back to austerity. Oh it won't be called austerity, but the 'economic stability' that he's promising will be essentially the same. It's not going to be materially different from the Tory government we've spent the last 14 years criticising on this manifesto and I'm not cheering it on just because the colours are swapped.

 

to be fair I will be expecting that unlike with the Tories that the people in charge want to move in the right direction, but on this manifesto it'll be incremental at best and won't be enough to make normal voters feel any different before the media start pivoting back to their right-wing friends and we elect in roaring destructive right-wing fascism because that's the only other acceptable option to dull centrism