The Conservative manifesto.
Some days, I don't have the slightest idea how to open these posts. I doubt this is much of a revelation. This isn't one of those days. I thought for instance of something along the lines of today saw the publication of a manifesto written by people safe in the knowledge they'll never have to implement it, and it accordingly reads like the deranged wishlist of crazed fanatics. And the other is from the Green party. I could have gone with the more than faintly sinister overtones contained within the Tory manifesto, from the "plan" for every stage of your life, far more Stalinist than anything Labour have come up with in decades, a theme it carries on with through the centrepiece of selling off at a discount houses the government doesn't so much as own. Then I could have made something out of "the good life" the manifesto is meant to usher in, so long as your vision of the good life is one that is so beige as to not be worth living at all.
We'll settle though for the sheer one-eyed monomania the manifesto confirms prevails within today's Conservative party. Apart from the Thatcherite true believers, nearly everyone now recognises that right to buy has been one of the most destructive policies of the last 30 years. The social housing stock has never been replaced, it kick-started the runaway price inflation we've seen since, and rather than creating the home owning democracy initially promised has instead overwhelmingly contributed to the situation we have now where only with the help of said home-owning parents can most of those looking to buy afford to do so.
A sensible party, rather than promising to sell off more would be pledging to empower councils to replenish the stock they've lost. Raiding housing associations whether they like it or not is an act of wanton vandalism, utterly self-defeating and for the briefest short-term gain. Indeed, it's not even remotely clear if there are votes in this latest cloth-eared Tory venture. Many housing association tenants are the same people who've suffered the most under the coalition so far, unlikely to be able to get together the heavily discounted amounts mooted. This might well be the point of the policy: meant to hark back to those glorious days when the party could win a majority, enthusing those who still believe the word aspiration means something, while at the same time not expecting it to be much used. The reaction from those at the sharp end has been little short of brutal, for good reason. Taken alongside the raising of the inheritance tax threshold, it speaks of just how narrow and stuck in the past the Conservative vision of what motivates the average person has become.
Apart possibly from the pledge to double the number of hours of childcare available to parents of 3 and 4-year-olds, there is absolutely nothing in the manifesto itself (PDF) that was unexpected. By necessity, it's a very different document to the one of 5 years ago, which hilariously offered "an invitation to join the government", RVSPed only by a group of people no one is paying the slightest attention this time round as a result. Gone is even a whiff of the experimentation of the early Cameron years, before the "green crap" was all cleared out, replaced with various shades of blue. The cover, complete with its angled photo of the Tory "team", George Osborne's fizzog obscured to protect the young and innocent, Nicky Morgan on the far left struggling to remain in focus and with the usual expression of apparent shock on her face, is navy blue, while the fonts inside alternate seemingly at random from light to dark. The photographs used are all but identical to the ones featured in Labour's manifesto yesterday, the portraits of Cameron the only shots of a politician, then the various images of Brits at work. At least Labour named them; the Tories leave them anonymous. Perhaps it was to hide their shame.
Certainly you couldn't pay many people enough to feature alongside such utter lies as are featured in the text. I honestly don't think I've read a more mendacious official publication from a party in the entire time I've been writing this blog. Apparently the UK was the fastest growing of all the major advanced economies last year, which must mean neither China or India fit such a description; the national debt was rising out of control 5 years ago, which is why it has gone up even further under the coalition; living standards will be higher this year than in 2010; those with the "broadest shoulders have contributed the most to deficit reduction", which is true only so far as the richest have contributed the most in cash terms, not as a percentage of their actual wealth, with the poorest having been hammered on that score; "International evidence and Treasury analysis shows that the only way to keep our economy secure for the future is to eliminate the deficit entirely and start running a surplus", the manifesto claims, a statement so patently absurd and false that no further comment is necessary; and, just to limit this to a single paragraph of semi-colons, "Under Labour, road and rail were starved of resources". Yes, really.
The Great Recession then has given way to a Great Revival. Our friends and competitors overseas look at Britain and see a country on the rise, perhaps even about to make a Great Leap Forward. Except this Great Revival is fragile, and the slightest deviation from the Plan will result in things going Backwards. This is why every single thing Labour did in power is blamed for why things still aren't Good Enough now. Almost every individual part of the manifesto begins by outlining The Evil That Labour Did, even when it jars completely. Labour for instance forgot that government is the servant of the British people, not their master, goes the introduction to making government work better for you section; it always knew best. The current government of course doesn't, which is why one part of it has gone to such lengths to demonise its supposedly weak and useless opponent and seems fixated as much on how terrible things were and still are rather than on how it's going to fix them.
Some things go strangely unmentioned. You won't for instance find any reference to either the bedroom tax or the spare room subsidy, a policy it seems the Tories are completely ashamed of but still won't do the decent thing and admit they got wrong. You won't discover just where the proposed £12bn in cuts to welfare will fall, nor is there any detail on where the axe will be wielded outside of the protected areas of spending. There's no detail on how the proposed rise in the personal allowance to £12,500 will be paid for, estimated to cost an eye-watering £3.2bn by the IFS, which again despite the spin of taking those earning the minimum wage out of tax (for those working 30 hours at least) benefits middle earners the most. The higher rate threshold will also rise to £50,000, again paid for who knows how. There'll be no increases in VAT, national insurance or income tax, but certainly not guaranteed is there won't be a further cut in the top rate of income tax. There is, unexpectedly, a mention of food banks, not to promise a desire to reduce the need of such institutions in a country experiencing a Great Revival, but obviously as an example of the role played by the voluntary sector in the country's social fabric. Absent is a promise to leave the European Convention on Human Rights, but Labour's Human Rights Act will be repealed and replaced with a British Bill of Rights codifying exactly the same things.
In so many places reality is completely absent, none more so than the hysterical Britain standing tall in the world section. Labour's Great Recession apparently weakened Britain on the world stage, whereas the Conservatives have strengthened our influence. Quite where our influence has been strengthened is a mystery; certainly not in Europe, not in the Middle East, where we remain beholden to authoritarian Arab regimes that Cameron spent much time fawning over in an effort to sell weapons to, nor in America, where the refusal to sign up to spending 2% of GDP on defence per NATO agreements and the various cuts to the military have been complained about. We intervened to stop a massacre in Libya, which turned out absolutely splendidly, saw William Hague team up with Angelina Jolie to end sexual violence in conflict once and for all, and helped women and children who have fled violence in Syria. That last claim is so egregious as to impress with the sheer chutzpah it must have taken to write it.
Then again, the whole manifesto is defined by such chutzpah. The party that claims to be the new vanguard of the workers is determined to push forward with 40% turnout thresholds on strike ballots, a move which if applied elsewhere would see nearly every local election result declared null and void. If you want to live in the most vibrant and dynamic country in the world, which is seemingly this one, a decent job is the best weapon against poverty. The Conservative definition of decent is any job, regardless of the conditions, zero hours contracts meriting a single mention. The principal reason immigration has not fallen to the tens of thousands is because of how wonderful the economy's been doing, and yet at the same time rather than being attracted to all these jobs the real reason migrants from Europe have been coming is to claim benefits. Finally, we measure our success not just in how we show our strength abroad, but in how we care for the weakest and most vulnerable at home.
I could just leave it there. I probably should. There is though something exceptionally depressing, at least to me about just how limited and limiting the Conservative view of life set out by their "plan" is. Be born. Grow up. Get a job. Raise a family. Retire. Die. Is that all there is? Is that all we're meant to aspire to? Nothing else? What if I don't have, don't want a family? What if I'm a hopeless loser? Where do I fit into this? I don't. But then I was never going to.
We'll settle though for the sheer one-eyed monomania the manifesto confirms prevails within today's Conservative party. Apart from the Thatcherite true believers, nearly everyone now recognises that right to buy has been one of the most destructive policies of the last 30 years. The social housing stock has never been replaced, it kick-started the runaway price inflation we've seen since, and rather than creating the home owning democracy initially promised has instead overwhelmingly contributed to the situation we have now where only with the help of said home-owning parents can most of those looking to buy afford to do so.
A sensible party, rather than promising to sell off more would be pledging to empower councils to replenish the stock they've lost. Raiding housing associations whether they like it or not is an act of wanton vandalism, utterly self-defeating and for the briefest short-term gain. Indeed, it's not even remotely clear if there are votes in this latest cloth-eared Tory venture. Many housing association tenants are the same people who've suffered the most under the coalition so far, unlikely to be able to get together the heavily discounted amounts mooted. This might well be the point of the policy: meant to hark back to those glorious days when the party could win a majority, enthusing those who still believe the word aspiration means something, while at the same time not expecting it to be much used. The reaction from those at the sharp end has been little short of brutal, for good reason. Taken alongside the raising of the inheritance tax threshold, it speaks of just how narrow and stuck in the past the Conservative vision of what motivates the average person has become.
Apart possibly from the pledge to double the number of hours of childcare available to parents of 3 and 4-year-olds, there is absolutely nothing in the manifesto itself (PDF) that was unexpected. By necessity, it's a very different document to the one of 5 years ago, which hilariously offered "an invitation to join the government", RVSPed only by a group of people no one is paying the slightest attention this time round as a result. Gone is even a whiff of the experimentation of the early Cameron years, before the "green crap" was all cleared out, replaced with various shades of blue. The cover, complete with its angled photo of the Tory "team", George Osborne's fizzog obscured to protect the young and innocent, Nicky Morgan on the far left struggling to remain in focus and with the usual expression of apparent shock on her face, is navy blue, while the fonts inside alternate seemingly at random from light to dark. The photographs used are all but identical to the ones featured in Labour's manifesto yesterday, the portraits of Cameron the only shots of a politician, then the various images of Brits at work. At least Labour named them; the Tories leave them anonymous. Perhaps it was to hide their shame.
Certainly you couldn't pay many people enough to feature alongside such utter lies as are featured in the text. I honestly don't think I've read a more mendacious official publication from a party in the entire time I've been writing this blog. Apparently the UK was the fastest growing of all the major advanced economies last year, which must mean neither China or India fit such a description; the national debt was rising out of control 5 years ago, which is why it has gone up even further under the coalition; living standards will be higher this year than in 2010; those with the "broadest shoulders have contributed the most to deficit reduction", which is true only so far as the richest have contributed the most in cash terms, not as a percentage of their actual wealth, with the poorest having been hammered on that score; "International evidence and Treasury analysis shows that the only way to keep our economy secure for the future is to eliminate the deficit entirely and start running a surplus", the manifesto claims, a statement so patently absurd and false that no further comment is necessary; and, just to limit this to a single paragraph of semi-colons, "Under Labour, road and rail were starved of resources". Yes, really.
The Great Recession then has given way to a Great Revival. Our friends and competitors overseas look at Britain and see a country on the rise, perhaps even about to make a Great Leap Forward. Except this Great Revival is fragile, and the slightest deviation from the Plan will result in things going Backwards. This is why every single thing Labour did in power is blamed for why things still aren't Good Enough now. Almost every individual part of the manifesto begins by outlining The Evil That Labour Did, even when it jars completely. Labour for instance forgot that government is the servant of the British people, not their master, goes the introduction to making government work better for you section; it always knew best. The current government of course doesn't, which is why one part of it has gone to such lengths to demonise its supposedly weak and useless opponent and seems fixated as much on how terrible things were and still are rather than on how it's going to fix them.
Some things go strangely unmentioned. You won't for instance find any reference to either the bedroom tax or the spare room subsidy, a policy it seems the Tories are completely ashamed of but still won't do the decent thing and admit they got wrong. You won't discover just where the proposed £12bn in cuts to welfare will fall, nor is there any detail on where the axe will be wielded outside of the protected areas of spending. There's no detail on how the proposed rise in the personal allowance to £12,500 will be paid for, estimated to cost an eye-watering £3.2bn by the IFS, which again despite the spin of taking those earning the minimum wage out of tax (for those working 30 hours at least) benefits middle earners the most. The higher rate threshold will also rise to £50,000, again paid for who knows how. There'll be no increases in VAT, national insurance or income tax, but certainly not guaranteed is there won't be a further cut in the top rate of income tax. There is, unexpectedly, a mention of food banks, not to promise a desire to reduce the need of such institutions in a country experiencing a Great Revival, but obviously as an example of the role played by the voluntary sector in the country's social fabric. Absent is a promise to leave the European Convention on Human Rights, but Labour's Human Rights Act will be repealed and replaced with a British Bill of Rights codifying exactly the same things.
In so many places reality is completely absent, none more so than the hysterical Britain standing tall in the world section. Labour's Great Recession apparently weakened Britain on the world stage, whereas the Conservatives have strengthened our influence. Quite where our influence has been strengthened is a mystery; certainly not in Europe, not in the Middle East, where we remain beholden to authoritarian Arab regimes that Cameron spent much time fawning over in an effort to sell weapons to, nor in America, where the refusal to sign up to spending 2% of GDP on defence per NATO agreements and the various cuts to the military have been complained about. We intervened to stop a massacre in Libya, which turned out absolutely splendidly, saw William Hague team up with Angelina Jolie to end sexual violence in conflict once and for all, and helped women and children who have fled violence in Syria. That last claim is so egregious as to impress with the sheer chutzpah it must have taken to write it.
Then again, the whole manifesto is defined by such chutzpah. The party that claims to be the new vanguard of the workers is determined to push forward with 40% turnout thresholds on strike ballots, a move which if applied elsewhere would see nearly every local election result declared null and void. If you want to live in the most vibrant and dynamic country in the world, which is seemingly this one, a decent job is the best weapon against poverty. The Conservative definition of decent is any job, regardless of the conditions, zero hours contracts meriting a single mention. The principal reason immigration has not fallen to the tens of thousands is because of how wonderful the economy's been doing, and yet at the same time rather than being attracted to all these jobs the real reason migrants from Europe have been coming is to claim benefits. Finally, we measure our success not just in how we show our strength abroad, but in how we care for the weakest and most vulnerable at home.
I could just leave it there. I probably should. There is though something exceptionally depressing, at least to me about just how limited and limiting the Conservative view of life set out by their "plan" is. Be born. Grow up. Get a job. Raise a family. Retire. Die. Is that all there is? Is that all we're meant to aspire to? Nothing else? What if I don't have, don't want a family? What if I'm a hopeless loser? Where do I fit into this? I don't. But then I was never going to.
Labels: Conservative manifesto, Conservatives, David Cameron, economics, elections 2015, policy, politics
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