Does Labour’s manifesto deliver what the country needs? Our panel’s verdict
George Monbiot: The climate crisis demands radical green policies. Unfortunately, Labour doesn’t have them
It’s a story of the good, the bad and the absent. There are some strong green policies in Labour’s manifesto. It will greatly increase investment in wind and solar power, block new licences for oil and gas fields, improve rail and bus networks and upgrade 5m homes. It will end the pointless badger cull, take action against polluting water companies and “expand nature-rich habitats”.
Unfortunately, these are counteracted by some powerful anti-green policies. Labour intends to sustain oil and gas production “for decades to come”. It says “we need to forge ahead with new roads”, though it doesn’t say why. It will force them through by “slashing red tape”, which means ripping up regulation. It promotes discredited snake oil remedies, such as carbon capture and storage (failed for 25 years) and “sustainable aviation fuels” (don’t exist, never will). The sole purpose of these fantasies is to avoid conflict with powerful interests while creating an impression of action.
But what really jumps out is the absences. Where is the matching of climate policy to scientific knowledge? Where are the targets for nature restoration? Or for waste reduction? Where are the policies for dietary change or a shift in transport modes? Where is the protection for soil or marine ecosystems? Where is the rescue package for our collapsing regulators, without which environmental law is a dead letter?
Labour presents itself as a serious alternative to Tory failure and dysfunction. But it fails to engage seriously with the greatest dysfunction of all.
George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist
Devi Sridhar: Labour’s NHS pledges are promising – now they need the staff to deliver them
The focus on cutting NHS waiting times, increasing the number of GPs, dentists and mental health staff, and doubling the number of cancer scanners are all welcome steps forward. But I worry that the manifesto ignores some deeper challenges. The word Brexit appears only once, yet this is a key reason there aren’t enough NHS staff. This isn’t a political statement, but a fact. Where will the people come from to deliver these services? Who will deliver the faster cancer diagnoses and treatment? These staff need to feel valued and compensated appropriately. They are literally dealing with life and death each day and are currently working in a (nearly) broken system.
Preventing ill health gets a brief mention. There are pledges to reduce smoking (on which Britain is already performing well ahead of other countries), and to regulate junk food. But we need more action on this if we’re to shift our health service away from treating the symptoms of ill health and towards preventing them. This will require healthier diets and more physical activity, both of which require investment, and both of which the manifesto is largely silent on (there is no mention of subsidising healthy foods, for example). Labour hasn’t explicitly said which of its tax raises will fund improvements to the health system, though one of the big wins in office would be its Covid corruption commissioner, which would recoup taxpayer money that could be reinvested in the NHS. Yet more money – and crucially, more staff – will be needed.
Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh
Jonn Elledge: These plans are more for drivers than public transport users, but there are hints of radicalism
The Labour manifesto is approximately 26,670 words long, only slightly shorter than Animal Farm, but dedicates fewer than 500 of these to transport. Among them you will not find HS2, Northern Powerhouse Rail, Bakerloo or Crossrail.
It feels significant, in fact, that the first and longest part of the transport section is dedicated to roads. There’s talk of fixing potholes (a highly visible and relatively easy win, to be funded by scrapping a single contentious bypass), and addressing the soaring cost of car insurance (with no clue given as to how). “Cars remain by far the most popular form of transport,” the text notes. This is especially true in swing seats.
Only after drivers have been reassured does the document turn to public transport. The rail section contains no surprises: nationalisation by attrition as franchises expire, with mayors to get extra powers to design services. It’s positive but not transformative: there is no commitment to build the new lines required to substantially increase capacity.
The manifesto does promise to expand the ability of local governments to plan their own bus networks, as London always has and other cities are exploring now. The longstanding ban on municipal ownership will be lifted, too: all this could add up to a return to the world of municipal corporations, when transport was both public service and revenue raiser. The document also promises to clean up the roads and provide the car industry with greater certainty. Labour says it will roll out more EV charging points and restore the plan to phase out new internal combustion engine cars from 2030, which Rishi Sunak pointlessly scrapped last autumn. It’s cautious – but there are hints of radicalism.
Jonn Elledge’s new book, A History of the World in 47 Borders: The Stories Behind the Lines on Our Maps, is published in April
Frances Ryan: In terms of welfare, this is a manifesto that will be defined by its omissions
The Conservatives have torn the welfare state to shreds. Labour’s cautious manifesto promises some sticking tape, but shows next to no ambition for fixing it back together. There is some good (albeit largely already released) news: scrapping or reforming the work capability assessment; tackling the Access to Work backlog for disabled people; a vague pledge to “review” universal credit to make work pay; and a cross-government strategy to end homelessness.
Yet this is a manifesto that will be defined by its omissions. There was apparently no room for a section on social security. That means no word on whether Labour would scrap Conservative plans to tighten eligibility for the flagship disability benefit, personal independence payments (Pip), nor a pledge to reform the faulty assessment system. There is no plan to scrap or reduce benefit sanctions, despite all the evidence showing they don’t work. On the contrary, there will be “consequences” for those not looking for work.
Labour promises “an ambitious strategy” to reduce child poverty, but it consists of little else beyond free breakfasts in primary schools and regulating the private rental sector. The party made no pledge to overturn the two-child benefit cap, despite this being one of the most effective and affordable ways to reduce child poverty. To Starmer’s team, the success of this manifesto will be measured by how little it rocks the boat. But Britain’s safety net cannot be rebuilt with restraint. It will require radical reform and large scale spending – and wealth taxes to pay for it. The millions of people skipping meals cannot afford to wait.
Frances Ryan is a Guardian columnist
Larry Elliott: So Labour will rely on growth to deliver change. It may get lucky, it may not
Turn the page. End the chaos. No more sticking plasters. There was certainly no shortage of warm words from Keir Starmer as he presented Labour’s manifesto, a document that can be boiled down to a simple proposition: that tough choices can be avoided by speeding up the economy’s growth rate.
Starmer reeled off ways Labour would achieve this: a modern industrial strategy, reform of the planning system, a national wealth fund, a publicly owned clean energy company. There is nothing wrong with these ideas. Reform of the planning system to speed up infrastructure projects and to build more homes is welcome and long overdue. That said, they don’t represent a radical overhaul of the economy’s supply side, and in any case they will take time to work.
Let’s be clear: the economy might start to speed up no matter who wins the election. Inflation is down on its peak and interest rates will soon start to fall. Labour might get lucky. For the time being, the safety-first approach makes sense. Labour is like a football team that has lost four games in a row and now – largely due to the own goals scored by its opponents – stands within a few minutes of a famous victory. To close out the game, the manager hauls off his star striker and replaces him with a defender. But while taking no chances might be the right formula for winning on 4 July, it might not work so well in government. The fans could quickly turn nasty.
Larry Elliott is the Guardian’s economics editor
Charlotte Higgins: The sentiments are strong, but where are Labour’s concrete plans for arts and culture?
It’s not exactly inspiring, the blink-and-you-miss it culture section of Labour’s manifesto. It feels like it could have been written by an AI generator. “Culture is an essential part of supporting children and young people to develop creativity and find their voice,” it points out. Labour has a plan for the “creative industries sector”, it tells us, though what that plan may be, it does not say. It will work nicely with the BBC. It will “support children to study a creative or vocational subject until they are 16”. It will force underfunded national museums to spend time and money they don’t have on lending artworks to “communities across the country” – great idea if the resources were actually there. It will end ticket touting. Without saying it will increase access to music education, it says Labour will increase access to information about available music education.
It fails to acknowledge the role that the arts can make in igniting the imagination and in people’s ability to dream better futures, for themselves and their communities. There’s nothing on fixing the collapse in local authority funding, nothing concrete on the arts in schools, nothing on the creeping privatisation of the arts. Naturally, it completely fails to acknowledge that the arts need more money – tiny amounts, compared to the government’s overall budget, that could really bring about change to people’s lives across the country. Actor Imelda Staunton’s approving quote in the manifesto miraculously seems to say more than the document itself about Labour’s arts policy. If the manifesto is an exercise aimed at saying vague things blandly, then it has succeeded; one can only hope that the actual plan for power is more impressive.
Charlotte Higgins is the Guardian’s chief culture writer
More contributions to come