Sturgeon and May – my dream team to run Britain. Pity it can’t happen.

John Maguire likes bits and pieces of different manifestos – but feels votes hinge on strong leaders

Ageneral election inevitably brings party manifestos landing on our doorsteps. Much time is spent by all parties on dreaming up ‘new’ ideas, and the production costs must be enormous.

Yet how many of us read them? Sadly, I do.

The problem with manifestos is that they try to promise everything to everyone. But politicians forget that it is income from the plethora of taxes, visible and hidden, paid by taxpayers that they are spending. So they are profligate with ‘our’ money, and if their plans don’t work out we foot the bill. Then there are the ‘big ideas’ – like Labour’s plans to renationalise the railways – among other key industries.

But if having a nationalised railway – or other nationalised industry – was so great in the past, why was the idea abandoned? No doubt Labour will argue that the Tories sold off the railways to make money, whereas the Tories will say that privatisation meant greater efficiencies and reduced public funds to support the industry.

Both are no doubt right in their own way. But the biggest problem with the railways recently, especially on Southern Rail, has been never-ending strikes over technical issues bringing misery to thousands of working men and women who rely on trains to get them to and from jobs in London.

I would, in principle, enthusiastically support renationalisation of the railways – but only if strikes were outlawed and disputes settled