It’s not yet time to make a final decision on who I will be voting for in the General Election but most of the party manifestos are now available. So I thought I would do a quick review.
The Conservative Manifesto is here: https://public.conservatives.com/static/documents/GE2024/Conservative-Manifesto-GE2024.pdf . At 80 pages long not many people will be reading it. Instead they will rely on sound bites in national media such as television channels and the views of their friends. That’s except those who always vote the same way as they have done historically.
The big problem with the Conservative Manifesto is that it makes promises to fix a lot of things which the Torys have had 14 years to improve but have failed abysmally to do so. Massive levels of immigration have damaged housing provision and the NHS is a shambles despite more expenditure on it. There simply aren’t enough doctors, nurses or beds to cope with a growing and more elderly population. There is no revolution in the management of the NHS which is what is really required.
Even when they mention a positive policy of “Backing drivers” they have their facts wrong. They say “While 20mph zones can help improve road safety in residential areas or outside schools, misuse undermines public trust and risks congestion and pollution”. There is no evidence they improve road safety, but there is certainly a lot of misuse of such schemes. The Tories fail to make a clear commitment on how they would stop local councils from abusing such schemes as LTNs with the object of tax raising.
There are some good policies in there, such as “introducing a legal cap on migration to guarantee that numbers will fall every year….”, but it is very unclear how they would make that stick. Likewise they say they “would end frivolous challenges that frustrate infrastructure delivery by amending the law so judicial reviews that don’t have merit do not waste court time”. Easier said than done and who is to say which have merit and which do not? Lawyers would be good at arguing on that.
There are many good things in the Tory manifesto but do we trust them to deliver? I don’t on their past track record and Rishi Sunak is more of a “consensus” politician than a forceful leader who can push through tough policies and get them implemented. In reality the Civil Service seems to be out of control and not implementing Government decisions.
The Reform Party has now become a serious challenger based on the latest YouGov opinion poll which puts them ahead of the Conservatives. You can see some of their manifesto commitments here: https://www.reformparty.uk/policies although it is apparently still a work in progress.
The key issues they identify in the NHS are: Record waiting list crisis; Staffing crisis; Ambulance and A&E crisis; Excess deaths crisis no one wants to talk about; Amongst the Worst outcomes in the developed world. Among their solutions are: NHS acquire extra operational and appointment capacity from not-for-profit providers and the private sector; tax relief on all independent healthcare and insurance – if you can pay more, let’s encourage you to do so. I would support those proposals to ease pressure on the NHS – faster better care for all they claim.
They provide some useful data on doctors, nurses and NHS beds to support their arguments and clearly want to scrap Net Zero commitments without spelling it out. In total the declared policies to cover defence, transport and many other areas are not there yet. Will we see them before the election or will Reform simply expect us to vote for change while avoiding the Labour Party and others?
The Labour Party Manifesto is here: https://labour.org.uk/change/ . They make lots of good suggestions about how they would improve the NHS without necessarily taking into account the practicalities of doing so – such as funding and staffing needs.
They say “Britain needs a new approach: mission-driven government”. Sounds good but what does it mean in practical terms?
They argue that “The National Health Service needs to move to a Neighbourhood Health Service, with more care delivered in local communities to spot problems earlier. To achieve this, we must over time shift resources to primary care and community services”. But big specialist hospitals are known to provide better services and kill fewer people. Diluting the specialist expertise will not help. This is a populist policy similar to having more neighbourhood police on the streets which is also in their manifesto, without much consideration of the practicalities and effectiveness of a new structure.
But the Labour Party certainly seem to have given more thought to what is in their manifesto so the document is more polished than the ones mentioned above.
As the policies of the major parties are so ill-defined it really comes down to who you will trust to do the right thing when they are in power!
Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )
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