The 2024 Labour Manifesto is now online!
I am genuinely excited by loads of it, especially the green policies and the expansion of workers’ rights, but probably the most important part of it is the stuff aimed at economic growth.
What do you think? Love it? Hate it? Inspired to volunteer? Some more sensible, moderate emotion?
Largely sensible, moderate emotion here. It’s a fine, sensible, rational manifesto that fosters cautious optimism, because I do think there are some really good policies in there, especially the expansion of workers’ rights. I felt the Lib Dem manifesto was more inspiring, without diving wholly into the realms of fantasy like the Greens’ manifesto, but as a general statement of intent, Labour are convincingly going to be an improvement on the Tories.
I read this Labour manifesto and I think they are targeting the right issues, but I don’t agree with their proposed solutions.
On the NHS it’s talking about how they will “harness the power of technologies like AI to transform the speed and accuracy of diagnostic services” but I’d rather we just had enough doctors to make diagnoses and not have another failed IT project.
On energy they’re talking about Hinckley Point C, Sizewell C and small reactors. That’s a retrograde step in my opinion. Nuclear is the most expensive energy source and they’re trying to bring energy prices down?
The economy section has “£1 billion to accelerate the deployment of carbon capture” which is a bullshit technology that has no proven record of working and just allows fossil fuels to continue operation. This one is probably a double whammy because I suspect it’s the backbone of their zero-carbon electricy plan for 2030.
There’s policies which haven’t been thought through all through this. Yes, it’s better than the Tories because the intent is right, but I’m not excited by this. In fact I worry that this will be a government of failed policies because they’ll be wasting money on ideas that won’t work.
The one thing that makes me optimistic that they wouldn’t persist in wasting money on things that won’t work is Starmer doesn’t strike me as a man that would do that. He’s just not that ideological. My sense of him as a person is that he’s someone that will look at a problem, listen to all the evidence, and then reach a conclusion upon which he bases his course of action. Any idea that can’t be proven to work will be jettisoned. I also strongly suspect that he hasn’t 100% decided what he’s going to do as prime minister, because he hasn’t got all the information yet.
So I’m reading the manifesto primarily as a statement of intent that outlines the general direction Labour would like to take the country, with specifics to be worked out later once Starmer has had a couple of weeks to stare at the problem in more detail.
There is no way this Labour government is going to be revolutionary, because that’s not who Starmer is. But a slow and steady, evidence-driven amble in the right direction seems likely.
I think that’s how manifestos should be read - as a statement of intent, but we all know that manifesto pledges are held as unbreakable vows. I mean, look at the LibDems still suffering the fallout over things said in a manifesto 14 years ago. They didn’t even win the election to be able to act on it.
They also haven’t got long to try multiple things. Take the carbon zero electricity by 2030 pledge. Our carbon per kWh has been dropping for a long time, but not at a rate that gets to zero in 2030. That’s just 5.5 years. Hinckley Point C might come online in that time frame, but Sizewell C would take 10 years minimum. So it’s not about replacing the gas power stations with nuclear. It’s about going all in on carbon capture, solar and wind from day 1 to get anywhere near in just 5 years.
I pick that example because I feel I understand the domain, but I’m sure there’s other examples. Trying a bad plan and realising it’s failing takes time. Starting with a better plan is faster.
I’m not sure they would even start with a bad plan. Starmer seems like the kind of person who would look at whether a plan is good or bad before even starting it.
I would anticipate a massive amount of both offshore and onshore wind farms - we know those work, and with onshore wind farms in particular, we know they’re pretty quick and cheap to get up and running (I recall reading a while back that it’s possible to get an onshore wind farm built and producing electricity in less than 12 months), and the main barrier to them has been all the old people being all NIMBY about it. Just having a blanket ban on “but it spoils my view!” as a valid objection to planning permission would do so much good.