The manifestos this year were surprisingly similar. I'll come back to why that might be. Both wasted a chunk of time slagging off the other side - which is irritating, insulting and ultimately shows a lack of confidence in the messages being put forward. Both are written on the assumption of the existance of a fairly well operating magic money tree. There is of course no such thing. Everything has a price and somebody somewhere has to pay it. This doesn't mean that public spending is bad. It doesn't even mean public spending is a necessary evil. It means that public spending needs the same care and thought as any decision about money made by an individual, a family or a company. If anything it needs more, because if public spending is not done well the results for the economy as a whole are not going to be good. If there isn't enough of it in the first place, the results for the economy will be very bad. Our current political crisis is the result of this error.
Which party will be the best steward of the public finances is obviously a key decision point for us voters. The good news is that both of them have abandoned the failed approach of simply keeping both public spending and taxation down. The bad news is that neither of them have a well worked out programme of what they are going to do instead. This isn't a 'they're both as bad as each other' complaint. Labour's programme looks like a lot of thought has gone into it. It's just the thought hasn't extended to organising priorities. This would be a grievous fault with any project but could be disastrous with a political one given that effectively everyone will assume their particular favourite item is the top priority. And it inevitably means even a great deal of success will still feel like a failure. Thinking big is usually a good thing. But not this big. The Tory programme achieves the difficult feat of being even worse. It's an exercise in having your cake and eating it. If money is to poured into projects on a wide scale, at least Labour has thought of how it is to be spent.
Neither manifesto tells me what I want to hear on Brexit, which is that the whole thing is being dropped. But given that the referendum can't be un-run, the Labour position is more defendable than the Tory one. It was a narrow result on a subject that a great many people weren't and aren't all that bothered about. To go ahead with the most extreme version of Brexit imaginable seems completely crazy.
But it wasn't all bad, and both manifestos have bits in that I like. It is good to see the Tories supporting the NHS and moving away from austerity. There are a lot of good ideas in the Labour one.
So my final conclusion is that Labour's is too ambitious, and by quite a long chalk. This is an own goal of quite staggering proportions because it undermines their credibility as a party of government on so makes it less likely they will get in in the first place. But if they do they've set a yardstick against which they are almost sure to fail. The Conservative Party have managed to make much the same mistake. They are also promising big but with less detail. I am quite happy about the way they have abandoned a lot of the stuff we've come to expect from the them over the years. But I was never a fan of the party. I wonder how long term supporters will see it? The lack of clarity on Brexit is unforgivable.
So basically Labour bad, but in a frustrating way that suggests there was a really good manifesto in there struggling to get out. Tories bad, but in cyncal and unpleasant way that makes me wish they were nowhere near the levers of power.
I think I need to look at some of the smaller parties' offerings.
Neither manifesto tells me what I want to hear on Brexit, which is that the whole thing is being dropped. But given that the referendum can't be un-run, the Labour position is more defendable than the Tory one. It was a narrow result on a subject that a great many people weren't and aren't all that bothered about. To go ahead with the most extreme version of Brexit imaginable seems completely crazy.
But it wasn't all bad, and both manifestos have bits in that I like. It is good to see the Tories supporting the NHS and moving away from austerity. There are a lot of good ideas in the Labour one.
So my final conclusion is that Labour's is too ambitious, and by quite a long chalk. This is an own goal of quite staggering proportions because it undermines their credibility as a party of government on so makes it less likely they will get in in the first place. But if they do they've set a yardstick against which they are almost sure to fail. The Conservative Party have managed to make much the same mistake. They are also promising big but with less detail. I am quite happy about the way they have abandoned a lot of the stuff we've come to expect from the them over the years. But I was never a fan of the party. I wonder how long term supporters will see it? The lack of clarity on Brexit is unforgivable.
So basically Labour bad, but in a frustrating way that suggests there was a really good manifesto in there struggling to get out. Tories bad, but in cyncal and unpleasant way that makes me wish they were nowhere near the levers of power.
I think I need to look at some of the smaller parties' offerings.
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