PannickAtTheDisco
Well-Known Member
I'll go through each point on the BBC's Labour manifesto page and give me quick thoughts, so that I'm at least being transparent.
Renationalisation
Education
So all in all, some things I agree with, many I don't or that I feel are poorly developed and need much more meat to them. The manifesto doesn't deal with the major issue of who will be implementing these policies, many of whom are rather unimpressive and lacking credibility, particularly in their own supposed areas of expertise.
Renationalisation
- Bring the railways back into public ownership as franchises expire and repeal the Railways Act 1993 which privatised the network - I partially agree with the principle, but only for under-performing franchises. There should be a much more stringent testing of the performance and quality of franchise services, and every franchise must have to meet much stricter fare conditions, on-time conditions, number of service and number of seats conditions and if they fail they should be either re-nationalised, or have a private/public collaboration with an existing successful franchise.
- Freeze passenger rail fares, free wi-fi across the network, an end to driver-only operation of trains and improved accessibility for disabled people - Rail fares should be reviewed and remodelled, but a mandatory national freeze creates excess costs. Instead, a simpler fare system should be introduced, and contactless payment should be introduced, along with national rail oyster cards. Paper/card tickets are a nuisance and huge waste of resources and should be banned. Free wifi and improved accessibility is important, as is extending platforms and improving station facilities to improve ticket access. I don't really see the issue around driver-only trains, I know Germany has an excess number of staff but I don't really see their use.
- Reverse the privatisation of Royal Mail "at the earliest opportunity" - Why? I haven't experienced a noticeable decline in service since privatisation. I think this is unnecessary.
- Create at least one publicly-owned energy company in every region of the UK, with public control of the transmission and distribution grids - Not for me, just make rules and pricing structures much more transparent and strict.
- Introduce an immediate emergency price cap to ensure the average dual fuel household energy bill remains below £1,000 per year - Again a mandatory limit creates additional costs, conduct a full root and branch review and come up with affordable figures that can be implemented long-term.
- Repeal the Health and Social Care Act 2012 - which restructured the NHS - and "reverse privatisation" of the health service - Create a full re-structure of the NHS. Remove a number of middle management roles and create a minimum level of doctors/nurses/other medical practitioners, put provisions in place to incrementally increase wages to encourage more recruits, and make university and medical school funding dependent on numbers of highly talented and qualified graduates entering professional service. Make private sector opportunities in each region be dependent on them supporting the local NHS, by helping to provide non-essential treatments at a subsidised cost, contributing to GP provisions and additional walk-in centres to relieve strain on NHS hospitals which should solely focus on essential care. Increase care provisions for disabled, mental health and elderly care, again with support from the private sector who would have to contribute if they wanted access to the local market for privately run, for profit care opportunities. I don't think Labour go far enough.
- Support the renewal of the Trident submarine system - Would only back Labour's view if Corbyn came out and said he's changed policy and would use it.
- Work with international partners and the UN on multilateral disarmament "to create a nuclear-free world" - No harm in trying.
- Commit to the Nato benchmark of spending at least 2% of GDP on defence - Fine.
- Insulate the homes of disabled veterans for free - Cool.
- Labour believes in the "reasonable management of migration" but "will not make false promises on immigration numbers" - Wishy-washy answer, I assume there is more in the manifesto which I've yet to read, but need a much clearer intended plan.
- Replace income thresholds for bringing family members to the UK with "an obligation to survive without recourse to public funds" - Sounds interesting.
- Uphold responsibilities under the Refugee Convention and offer a safe haven to those fleeing from persecution and war - Yes, but I'd be interested to hear policy on integration in this respect, and how they intend to ensure we maximise their contribution to society, productiveness and reduce the risk of radicalisation among people who come here with nothing, and have had their lives destroyed.
- Accept the EU referendum result and "build a close new relationship with the EU" prioritising jobs and and workers' rights - Sounds like an idealist statement, need more concrete information.
- Guarantee the rights of EU nationals living in the UK and work to "secure reciprocal rights" for UK citizens elsewhere in the EU - Only guarantee these things in a mutually agreed and announced deal.
- A "meaningful" role for Parliament throughout Brexit negotiations - waffling on talking about things and stuff without actually saying anything.
- Negotiating priorities to have "a strong emphasis on retaining the benefits of the single market and the customs union" - Good luck with that, all a bit idealist.
- Negotiate transitional arrangements "to avoid a cliff-edge for the UK economy" if no deal is reached - Good luck.
- Keep EU-derived laws on workers' rights, equality, consumer rights and environmental protections - Suits me, no reason we can't add to it. Specifics would be nice. Would have liked a commitment to "Freedom to visit, but not freedom to work" and a view that we discriminate against the rest of the world whilst allowing free reign for EU citizens to come here and take any jobs, whilst they should have to abide by the same QC procedures. Also reduce the ability for migrants to send their wages home, putting into place rules to ensure that the Government takes a certain contribution of all payments made out of the UK, and that a minimum amount of earned income must remain in a UK bank account once the person leaves. This, in my view, will stop EU workers under-cutting UK workers and accepting lower wages, or cash in hand jobs which would make them rich in their own country, but undercuts the UK workforce and means the Government loses out on valuable income.
- A 20-point plan for security and equality at work, including an end to zero-hours contracts and equal rights for employees - Disagree with abolishing zero-hour contracts, as they are useful to many people. Instead introduce a requirement for employers offering them to offer 2 contracts to each prospective employee, one zero-hour and one with a minimum number of weekly hours. The employee then chooses which they want and it must be honoured. In addition, employers must offer a balanced range of minimum hours, and would be unable to offer 99% of their roles as for example "minimum 1 hour".
- Repeal the Trade Union Act and roll out sectoral collective bargaining, whereby industries can negotiate agreement as a whole - I'm a 90s child but wary of trade unions because from my parents experience they were damaging to industry and held the country to ransom. I would rather the Government itself write employees rights into law which private companies would then implement. Other countries have unionisation and are far more productive, I think in the UK they become greedy and hold the rest of the working population to ransom, quite often unfairly.
- End the public sector pay cap - Needs far more scrutiny and information. What about the private sector, why not mutual agreements and guarantees?
- Guarantee trade unions a right to access workplaces - why?
- Enforce all workers' rights to trade union representation at work - Needs developing.
- Use public spending power to drive up standards, including only awarding public contracts to companies which recognise trade unions - The Labour party obsession with unions is a turn-off. Private companies should only be allowed contracts when they are more efficient and cost-effective than public contracts, and should be banned from competing if they have a track-record of hiking up the price and not completing contracts on time.
- Shifting the "burden of proof" in the so-called "gig economy" so that the law assumes a worker is an employee unless the employer can prove otherwise - fine.
Education
- Reintroduce maintenance grants for university students and abolish university tuition fees - Agree with re-introducing grants, disagree in abolishing fees, they are not really a burden on students and the money can be better used elsewhere i.e. schools and healthcare.
- A National Education Service to provide "cradle-to-grave learning that is free at the point of use" from early years to adult education - Affordable, how?
- Reduce class sizes to under 30 for all five, six, and seven-year-olds - Class-sizes should be under 30 for everyone.
- Free school meals for all primary school children, paid for by removing the VAT exemption on private school fees - Undecided, perhaps the focus should be more of improving wage and employment conditions in areas where free school meals are required, and educating parents in producing healthy meals for their kids so they can feed themselves.
- An extra £6bn annually for the NHS, funded by increasing income tax for the highest 5% of earners and increasing tax on private medical insurance - Extra funding for the NHS is a good thing, but I disagree with raising taxes, I already fork out too much tax as it is and it should be being reduced across the board.
- An Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) for health to scrutinise spending - OK, but add responsibilities for efficient workforce and provision of treatment.
- An additional £8 billion over the lifetime of the next Parliament for social care - Are we printing money?
- Look into creating a National Care Service for social care "rooted in the traditions of our National Health Service" - More waffle, tell me what you actually intend to do.
- An end to benefit sanctions - which sanctions?
- Scrap the so-called "bedroom tax" - yes.
- Reinstate housing benefit for under-21s - at what cost?
- Guarantee the state pension "triple lock" throughout the next Parliament so that pensions rise by at least inflation, earnings or 2.5% a year, whichever is higher - Hiw about better provisions for the young generation who get much worse pensions and much less security?
- The winter fuel allowance and free bus passes guaranteed as universal benefits - cool.
- A commitment to "protect the pensions of UK citizens living overseas in the EU or further afield" - Surely if they're abroad, they can look after themselves?
So all in all, some things I agree with, many I don't or that I feel are poorly developed and need much more meat to them. The manifesto doesn't deal with the major issue of who will be implementing these policies, many of whom are rather unimpressive and lacking credibility, particularly in their own supposed areas of expertise.