What they said about the manifesto
“Britain goes into this general election a harsher country in which to live than it was ten years ago,” said The Observer. A decade of cuts has destroyed any pretence that there is a decent welfare safety net, while schools and hospitals are on their knees. Against this backdrop, Labour’s radical manifesto provides a welcome alternative. Maybe it promises too much, including some questionable “universal giveaways to pensioners”, and a programme of nationalisation that suggests a “blind faith” in the public sector. But there’s no question that, if enacted, it would put Britain on course to become a “far better, kinder and greener country”.
Labour’s manifesto is the “most extreme” programme put forward since 1983, said The Daily Telegraph – when Michael Foot’s manifesto was dubbed “the longest suicide note in history”. It would usher in a “Marxist, high-taxing, centralised state that would drag the country to economic disaster”. It is hard to overstate this manifesto’s radicalism, agreed The Times. It promises “giant increases in tax and spending”. Labour plans to boost the size of the state to a record 45.1% of GDP and spend an extra £135bn a year – and its figures simply don’t add up. They include a string of giveaways to be funded by £80bn in tax rises, which it says would fall exclusively on businesses and those earning above £80,000 a year. Yet as Paul Johnson of the Institute for Fiscal Studies noted, it is simply “not credible” that enough revenue could be raised that way. To fund a “socialist revolution”, Labour’s net will have to be spread wider.
Pay no attention to those who denounce this manifesto as “Venezuelan politics on stilts”, said Polly Toynbee in The Guardian. It’s not. Page after page shows that something better can be done, if only the country votes to put right the “dilapidation and dysfunction that has been the deliberate policy of the past decade”. It actually sets out to tackle the nation’s problems, such as the housing crisis – its “key economic malfunction”. The climate emergency is “put centre stage”, with a pledge to reach net-zero carbon emissions in the 2030s. “The ambition is breathtaking.” It should frighten complacent Tories, and it deserves to jolt this election into life.