Another Labour U Turn

[lincstash]

The 10 per cent tax increase on cider, a new tax on phone lines to pay for super-fast broadband and the scrapping of tax relief on holiday homes.

All abandoned within days of being announced.

How can you vote for a party that cant even keep a policy five working days............and certainly cant keep an election promise.

Remember the Labour election promise of a vote on the EU Constitution? That soon went down the pan, didnt it, after they got back in?. He had no intention in the first place of giving us a say in it the matter!!! What a liar, dont fall for the labour election lies this time!!

Erm, some of this stuff is being 'abandoned' because there's no time to get it through before Parliament dissolves (eg the cider increase) but will still become law if Labour are re-elected, so it's hardly a U-turn. And I say this as someone who's pretty hacked off with Labour at the moment.

*Breaking News

Even more Labour abandoned promises:

-Legislation to drive down fees charged by libel lawyers
-A referendum on the voting system
-Phasing out the remaining hereditary peers from the House of Lords

All promised and scrapped in days.

Those three stealth taxes were dropped to get the Tories agreement to the Finance Bill going through before Parliament is prorogued. If they ain't in the Finance bill they won't become law.

EightiesChick

You are surely joking?

This Parliament has had more time off for holidays and recesses than any other in living memory. The legislative load in the past few months has been absolutely tiny.

And even if you don't believe that, then there is the question of priorities. Labour have chosen to fight their ground over the hugely contentious Digital Economy bill, instead of the Budget or Constitutional Reform. Why?

The "wash-up" seems to be an insult to democracy. Bills go through without debate, on the say-so of the three major parties' front benches - without any backbench input.

longfingernails

No, I stand by my post that the original comment was unfair on some counts - the cider tax rise was only brought in last month in the Budget, and as I said will continue to apply unless the Tories get in and reverse it, so Labour are not doing a U turn - which I would define as changing their mind about advocating a policy. They are just saying that given limited time they are not pushing it through now.

However, I do agree that the wash-up process in general is ridiculous. Mandelson this morning has blamed the Tories for stopping stuff going through such as the proposed referendum on an alternative vote system. So Lord M, what's been stopping you implementing the electoral reform you promised in 2005 and 2001 and, ooh, 1997, till now? That's hardly the Tories' fault that you didn't get it done when you had a whacking great majority! The wash-up process is being used blatantly to score points. That, I agree, is a disgrace.

Oh, OK. I agree that these things are not U-turns as they will all be in the Labour manifesto.

Personally, I think it is stupid to put "cider supertax" in the manifesto. It is a tiny, small-scale change; it doesn't win a single vote, and loses many (Labour do have seats in vaguely Western places like Bristol).

But if they had timetabled things better, then instead of taking such ginormous holidays, they could have had the Digital Economy bill or the Constitutional Renewal bill or the new crime bill done ages ago. That would have left enough time to get the cider tax or the phone tax through if they wanted to.