Labour’s 2015 Manifesto – for growth/jobs and a basis for more borrowing?

[Isitmebut]

So looking at Labour’s 2015 Manifesto they say is Fiscally responsible on the whole front page, embarrassingly proven to be a mistruth, where are the policies to build on the private sector confidence/investment we have seen over the past 5-years, that created so many jobs – and to help pay back all our national debt, now, and new borrowing past 2010?

Examining the key Labour policies, are they visionary across the whole economy to keep the growth and job creation going, or badly thought through populist soundbites, that might even cost jobs and growth?

• Raising the Minimum Wage to more than £8 an hour - Funded by whom?

The £8 rate is now promised by 2019 (previously by 2020), but the minimum wage is set by the Labour formed and fully independent Low Pay Commission (including trade unions), considering what small, medium and large businesses can afford – so if the UK economy for any reason stalls or even crashes, who will pay for this, the businesses already suffering, so will need to shed more jobs than they would have?

• Banning the "exploitation" of zero hours contracts and "legislate to say that if you do regular hours you get a regular contract after 3-months" - Funded by whom?

This is a contract that has been around since the late 1990’s and recent figures show there are about 700,000 workers on them - with a growth rate of (?) from 2010 no one seems to know, when inflation was 4-5% rather than zero now - and many want to be on such flexible hours.

As many smaller companies entering into the Zero Hours contracts as cannot afford to hire permanent staff and/or predict work demand for the weeks and months ahead, this policy will add greater worker insecurity as companies will have to dismiss after 3-months, so who picks up that bill?

• Freezing energy bills until 2017 so they can "only fall and cannot rise" - Funded by whom?

When Labour was in power (and Ed Miliband Energy Minister) from 2004 they expected the private sector (energy companies) to pay to build our energy infrastructure, but left an energy generation crisis, so hardly a solid market to demand discounts.

So forgetting the shortage of generation is an issue, if energy prices rise as fast as they recently fell, who is meant to pay for the underwriting of our domestic energy bills, the current companies we want to pay for new production, the new companies we want formed to INCREASE to promote price competition, or the government as those energy companies tell a non commercial thinking Labour to FRO?

• Reforming banks to ensure they "work for businesses again" - Another big bill?

The last time Labour fiddled with the banks and encourages reckless lending, the UK taxpayer had to nationalise banks.

• *Build at least 200,000 new homes a year by 2020 with "first priority for local first time buyers" – Paid for by the banks, how?

Some initial hair-brained idea that somehow the money from Mortgage ISA savings or bank shareholders, will pay the capital cost and take the home price risk, of building these homes.

• Taxing bank bonuses and "put young people back to work in every part of the UK” - As by legislation there is only a small cash element to bank bonuses and the rest locked up in case of clawback for years, hardly a revenue stream to ‘bank’ on for ANY policy, especially for the 16-24 year olds they let down last time.

• Bring back the 50p top income tax rate for those earning over £150,000 – Could raise a few £billion or be a net loss to the Exchequer (according to the IFS) as legal tax avoidances are used.

• End the non-dom rule that allows some wealthy UK residents to limit the tax they pay on earnings outside the country – Net, likely to cost the Exchequer money.

• Private Tenancy/Rent Controls - likely to reduce the number of private sector properties available to rent, when the council/social housing demand is swamped and a dire homes shortage.

To paraphrase Ed Miliband yesterday, he'd rather offer all the voters diddly squat and outperform, rather than over promise and disappoint - so no change from their 2010 manifesto, similar to socialist France, that have failed.
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8615297.stm

P.S. If this is NOT a blueprint for growth and all he wants to do is attack the private sector and increase most taxes, as every Labour government before him, then it isn't just the repayment of current debt and new borrowings in danger of repayment - it is every Whitehall government department spending/budget in danger, as the UK government spends several hundred ££billion a year that has to be earned, and you cannot tax an economy to sustainable growth.

Oh god, I can't believe I'm biting but here goes. When Labour borrow as much money as the Tories, then I'll worry. When Labour cut as much from essential public services but still somehow double the national debt, as the Tories have done, then I'll worry. When Labour fritter away as much money on vanity projects as the Tories have done, then I'll worry. When Labour drive as many people to food banks as the Tories have done, then I'll worry. Whether you like it or not, and no matter how many opinion pieces you link to (that's opinions as opposed to actual facts), the Tories have buggered everything up.

The last 5 years have been a textbook example of sheer financial mismanagement. But then, with past Tory disasters such as ERM, Lawson and 1992, what would you expect? Speculate as much as you want that Labour would have been worse, the fact remains that their record between 2007 and 2010 is good evidence to show that a Labour recovery would have been much faster and fairer with far less debt. £1.5 TRILLION, anyone?

AllThePrettySeahorses .... haven't we been over this before; why didn't you ask questions the last time and save us both the repeat?

In 1996/7 when the Conservatives left power, the National Debt was £403 billion, by 2009/10 it was £1,073 trillion under Labour.

If Labour pass to the Conservative coalition a £157 billion annual deficit/overspend in 2010, the ONLY way NOT to increase it is SLASH £157 billion with spending cuts from Day 1 - and then we'd just have the interest on the £1 trillion (and change) National Debt Labour left.

Please remember that EVERY year a country runs an annual budget deficit, it accumulates onto the National Debt, got it?

As Labour opposed every coalition policy, never mind every spending cut, it is sheer Labour hypocrisy when that 2010 deficit/overspend is down from £157 bil to £87 bil now, to continually whine;'the national debt has gone up', 'the annual budget deficit has not come down to zero as promised', 'your cutting too much',,, it can't work both ways, can you lot fecking make your mind up what YOUR policy is?

• Where was the Labour plan to get 2 million new jobs in your 2010 manifesto, when you'd been in charge of the economy for 13-years - when Labour was also putting up taxes to help 'the cost of living' crisis that began in 2008??

• How many would have been using food banks under Labour, following the French socialist plan, with their unemployment level close to 11%, versus our 5.6%?

You want to see who frittered all the money away, look at my thread on Labour's policies 1997 to 2010, there are all the FACTS you need, and then eat your own words.

Where did the money go under Labour????

P.S FYI 'Labour's record' between 2007 and 2010, was in between those dates, Labour LOST nearly 7% of GDP/output, which was more than was lost in the Depression - why are you bragging about that????

And regarding this thread - where is the vision going ahead, as unless someone is the 1 in 50 on Zero Hours (that didn't get a mention in the 2010 manifesto with inflation far higher) or the minimum wage (and likely to lose their jobs thanks to Labour,

Where are the policies to continue Osborne's 'northern powerhouse' type policies, or does Labour concentrate on Hampstead and the 'ya, ya, wine bar' set nowadays? lol

Maybe all those new regional assemblies and quangos and democracy ball-shit, is STILL Labour's idea of economic 'growf' - hoping fat government salaries, filter down to the masses - just like 1997 to 2010.

Labour’s Election PledgeTombstone promises “Higher Living Standards” for Working Families”.

Fair enough, UK citizens ‘real’ (inflation adjusted) Earnings have been falling since 2008 and Mr Miliband week after week have criticised, no blamed, the Conservative Coalition for this and intimated this would not have happened under a 2010 Labour government.

But 5-years after all that Labour bluster, can everyone NOT on Zero Hours and the Minimum Wage (with dubious policies to address them as explained above), which is the vast majority of the population, say that there are CONCRETE plans within the manifesto, to honour that structure Miliband erected?

It seems to me, that all this higher earnings bluster, is all part of the Labour pretence that they stick up for the workers versus the rich and powerful, but ‘where is the money’ ?????

In America Obama got elected on a similar ploy but the big differences are; Miliband ain’t no Obama, and it wasn’t Obama’s party in power that CAUSED the financial crash/recession and wage erosion in the first place.

Obama elected on a platform of class division, has since become arguably one of the most politically divisive and lame duck U.S. Presidents in living memory - as a Miliband P.M. would be, clueless how to build a private sector growth/economy, with internal Ed-to-Ed fights and external SNP battles, on every detail.

For all those voting for this manifesto, the most poorly thought out bit of shite I can remember, ya-boo-sucks.