One of the golden rules of politics is "Under promise and over-deliver". Johnson, as is his habit, completely ignored the rules and over-promised and under delivered. That contributed to a big loss in trust in politicians. Starmer's job is to try and reverse that.

 

Of course it is disappointing that Labour haven't promised to abolish the two child cap. However, I suspect that they are hoping wither to be able to abolish it in a few year's time, or promise to do so in their 2028/9 manifesto. The logical, albeit frustrating, thing to do is to demonstrate competence in a first term before offering something more radical in a second.

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

 

I agree/disagree. I do agree that not all spending is created equal. And so many people/the media missing the distinction is what has caused HS2 to become what it has... A project which will not reap the maximum long term benefits. I'm hopeful that Labour will adopt some of the policies that the likes of the Lib Dems and Greens have put forward, particularly those that appear popular with the public and shouldn't be too difficult to implement (wealth tax being 1). Although I think the main issue is that in order for Labour to get public services back to funding levels seen pre-austerity, they will need to spend quite a vast amount of money. I believe preventing more cuts and starting to increase funding gradually during their term would be the financially better thing to do. So that they can start to improve services, grow the economy and set themselves up for a better 2nd term. I'm hoping the NHS will see the yearly budget increases back to pre-tory levels.

 

One thing I think will benefit from Labour are infrastructure projects. The large housebuilding goal, if they do indeed manage to only complete 75% of it, will be huge. With a Labour government I believe Sadiq Khan and TFL will have much easier time than they have had previously so that projects like the Bakerloo extension and Crossrail 2 will hopefully proceed/be in progress by the end of the decade. And that they then do a proper "leveling up" of the north that the conservatives failed on with better transport links between northern cities to mirror at least a fraction of the investment the southeast gets. Also more focus on East to West connections. I'm personally feeling a little optimistic about labour, particularly if they the Lib Dems in opposition.

 

I disagree that labour will be "essentially the same" as the tory government of the last 14 years considering all that has happened. One of the things I like about the Labour manifesto is the setting up of a Ethics and Integrity Commission in regards to the house of commons to reduce corruption and ensure MPs are serving their constituents with stricter rules around second jobs for MPs.

 

Perhaps I'm being too optomistic and will be let down, but I can see 5 years of labour improving various things that the conservatives have ruined/destroyed.

Just as well Reform aren't included in here. They are offering a contract instead of a manifesto.

This GB Energy thing is just not holding water. Promising 68k jobs when Centrica, the current largest energy provider, has 20k. The maths ain’t mathing

 

Along with promising its HQ in Scotland I smell a rat in a Scotland Kit

Reform contract/manifesto/whatever is genuinely terrifying. i am so glad that I don’t know a single person that will fall for their racist/transphobic/tin foil hat rhetoric as you’ve got to be a rather vile individual to vote in favour of some of their nasty policies x

It’s also terrifying how so many would be willing to lose their human rights.

I'm totally fine with Labour's. Sensible policies and (hopefully) playing the game to get votes too.

 

Reform is a hot mess but as expected. I'm also slightly alarmed to find out it's a company and not a political party!

Quite a lot of shit in the Reform 'manifesto' but this caught my eye

 

Any teaching about a period or example of British

or European imperialism or slavery must be paired

with the teaching of a non-European occurrence

of the same to ensure balance.

 

oh yeah, going to add in Manifest Destiny to the British history curriculum are you? are you f***. completely at odds with any pretense of providing good education so ones patriotic feelings aren't hurt and you pretend that white people and dark-skinned people have committed equivalent atrocities throughout history. Incidentally, a viewpoint that prevents you from understanding why economic migrants the Reform voters are so concerned about exist in the first place.

Quite a lot of shit in the Reform 'manifesto' but this caught my eye

oh yeah, going to add in Manifest Destiny to the British history curriculum are you? are you f***. completely at odds with any pretense of providing good education so ones patriotic feelings aren't hurt and you pretend that white people and dark-skinned people have committed equivalent atrocities throughout history. Incidentally, a viewpoint that prevents you from understanding why economic migrants the Reform voters are so concerned about exist in the first place.

 

Yeah it's pretty bonkers full stop. The next election cycle is going to be interesting. I fear the Conservatives will sell out to Reform, but I also think off the back of this a lot of voters will abandon them. The problem I think Labour will have is then nailing that massive broad spectrum.

What stood out to me in the Reform manifesto was the cheeky "most mothers want to stay at home and not work so we'll incentivise this". Very 1950s!