Labour’s 2017 general election manifesto is a big break with the recent past. Whether the manifesto allows the party to make a fresh connection with the British electorate won’t be clear until 9 June. What is beyond doubt is that this manifesto proclaims that politics and government in Britain do not have to be done in the way the country has long been accustomed to. That is true, and Labour is offering the country a real choice. So far, so very good, on both counts.
Jeremy Corbyn’s biggest achievement is to put several propositions back into the arena that had been thought extinct. That does not mean all of them deserve a new lease of life equally. Nationalisation in the shape of expensive, centralised public ownership is one to treat with caution, not least because of the power it gives to trade union leaders to drive up costs. There are signs that Labour’s economic team recognises that, but not enough detail about how it can be done. Other changes, though, are more straightforwardly welcome. The most important of these concerns taxation.
For 30 years or more, taking its cue from America, British politics took it as axiomatic that all voters will always recoil from increased taxes. Understandable though this was in some ways, it was a denial of the principle of social responsibility. As a result, throughout this era, parties have had to contrive ways of providing good levels of public provision without overt tax increases. Not surprisingly, this has become increasingly hard to maintain, and the effect on public goods has often been brutal. The no-tax assumption reached its nadir in 2015 when David Cameron and George Osborne promised no rises in income tax, VAT or national insurance for all. But it was an unachievable fantasy, as Philip Hammond found in the recent budget.
Labour is right to level with voters that tax rates cannot be set in stone for ever. Governments must be able to respond to economic changes, and those that want to invest in new programmes or projects must either borrow or tax to do so. Labour proposes to do both, which may alarm some voters. But the principle that fair and necessary taxes are a mark of a civilised society is the right one, and voters understand that they must rise as well as fall. Too few parties have been honest about this in recent times – the Liberal Democrats are an exception. Today it is not just Labour that is striding boldly into this territory. Even the Conservatives see the point of keeping options open. But it is Labour that confronts the issues with welcome audacity.
The real question is whether Labour is proposing the right level of tax take and the right mix of taxes and spending. There is a discussion to be had here. Taxes on income are very important, but taxes on wealth, including houses and land, which are less easy for the asset-rich to avoid, do not get as much focus as they should. Labour’s boldness does not extend to uprating and reforming council tax bands, for instance; instead only a review into reform is promised. There is nothing in the manifesto about fuel or alcohol taxes, both of which raise money and have social dimensions too. Abolishing tuition fees is an expensive subsidy to the better-off.
It is possible that the election has simply come too quickly for Labour to work everything out properly here. Some of the changes that have been made to the leaked draft last week add to that impression, though politics is involved too. The section on Trident and Nato has been sharpened at Mr Corbyn’s expense. The earlier plan to halt NHS reforms has wisely been replaced by a review. Looked at overall, Labour’s manifesto is a mixed bag of pledges, with some strange inclusions and other surprising omissions. Though radical in some ways it is conservative in others. The section on union rights is detailed and extensive, but that on the future of the United Kingdom is perfunctory. There is not as much sense of the future as there should be.
At 124 pages, this is a long manifesto. But it is not a suicide note. In terms of its social democratic credentials, the 1983 manifesto it most resembles is that of the Liberal/SDP Alliance rather than Labour’s. Its achievement is to expand the limits of the thinkable in British politics. Its weakness is that it does too little to make the thinkable seem realistic and practical. That reflects Mr Corbyn’s preference for energising his own support rather than persuading those outside it. This manifesto may not win Mr Corbyn the general election, but it could cement his support within his party.
The most eye-catching proposals in Labour’s draft manifesto are the plans to renationalise the railways, the energy market and Royal Mail, and to abolish university tuition fees.
Estimates of costings are difficult at this stage as the leaked draft is a menu without prices, but the party promises they will be fully costed.
Railways
What the draft manifesto says:A Labour government will introduce a public ownership of the railways bill to repeal the Railways Act 1993 under which the Conservatives privatised our railways. In public ownership, we will deliver real improvements for passengers by freezing fares, introducing free wifi across the network, ensuring safe staffing levels and ending driver-only operation, and by improving accessibility for disabled people.
Analysis: Polling shows that more than 20 years after John Major’s Conservative government privatised the old British Rail, many commuters and the public are open to the idea of giving the state another go. Recent polls have shown 58-60% of the public back the idea. Public dissatisfaction with rail privatisation has partly been fuelled by a surge in passengers numbers far outstripping the extra investment in rolling stock, safety and stations.
But as the detail of the Labour’s manifesto pledge shows, this is no policy of 1970s-style state confiscation without compensation. The cautious phrase “as franchises expire” carefully limits the effect of this policy and avoids the problem of the cost of buying out the existing contracts. There are currently 15 rail franchises in place and their length varies from an initial seven to 10 years to longer 15-22-year contracts, so it is going to be a lengthy process.
Rail poll
Energy
What the manifesto says:Energy companies will be taken back into public ownership with central government control of transmission and distribution grids. There will be at least one publicly owned energy company in every region of the UK, that is a locally run, democratically accountable energy supplier, working to tackle fuel poverty and encouragement for community energy cooperatives.
Analysis: Labour promises to “ensure that the average dual fuel household energy bill remains below £1,000 a year”. The energy regulator Ofgem says the current average variable tariff is £1,086, so a cap of £1,000 would not be a big stretch for the providers. But without a fall in costs, the drop of £86 would rob them of their profits, which the regulator said averaged £47 per customer in 2015.
Labour would create a state-run energy supplier for each region to keep private operators honest. It would also take control of National Grid and the regulator to control this natural monopoly. National Grid is a private company and it is unclear how Labour plans to exercise control without nationalising it.
Energy prices
Royal Mail
What the manifesto says:The Conservative government’s privatisation of Royal Mail was a historic mistake, selling off another national asset on the cheap. Labour will reverse this privatisation at the earliest opportunity, because it is a profitable company that should still be giving a return to the many not the few, and because key national infrastructure like a postal system is best delivered in public ownership.
Analysis: A policy even more popular than renationalising the railways, with recent polls showing 67% of voters back the idea. The post office unions say Royal Mail was worth £10bn when it was sold in 2013 for £3.3bn.
Mail decline
Tuition fees
What the manifesto says:Labour believes education should be free, and we will restore this principle … Labour will reintroduce maintenance grants for university students, and we will abolish university tuition fees.
Analysis: Variable university tuition fees were introduced in 2006 under Labour, which argued they were a middle class subsidy paid for by working class voters. The coalition government raised them to £9,000 a year in England. The cost of scrapping tuition fees has been estimated at £8bn, with a further £2bn on top for reintroducing maintenance grants. When the costed manifesto is published, it will be pored over to see whether the pledge is to be funded from reversing the cuts in corporation and capital gains taxes that have already been earmarked elsewhere.
Party strategists hope it will the “big bazooka” that will attract younger voters, especially students and 18- to 24-year-olds who who still strongly support Labour.
Students
Brexit
What the manifesto says:Labour accepts the referendum result. We will scrap the Brexit white paper and make retaining benefits of single market and customs union negotiating priorities. We will guarantee rights of EU nationals living in UK. We will reject any ‘no deal’ position and drop great repeal bill, replacing it with EU rights and protections bill to ensure no diminishing of workers’ rights, equality laws or consumer and environmental rights.
Analysis: It is wrong to say that the Labour manifesto is silent on Brexit. However, it will disappoint Labour remainers looking for a stronger commitment to staying in the single market while not particularly reassuring leave voters that the party is dedicated to delivering Brexit.
Immigration
What the manifesto says:No false promises on immigration numbers as the economy ‘needs migrant workers to keep going’. A desire to see “fair and managed migration”. That means scrapping £18,500 income threshold for UK citizens to bring non-European spouses to Britain that has led to separation of thousands of families. A migrant impact fund will be established to finance public services under additional pressure financed by existing visa levy.
Analysis: The manifesto implies Labour would scrap the Tories’ net migration target without giving any hint of its future approach to European migration post-Brexit, especially whether EU citizens will face a similar skills-based visa system that exists for non-EU citizens. The promise of a migrant impact fund is a long-standing Labour promise which has been matched by the Conservatives.
Migration figures
Business
What the manifesto says:Labour says it wants to discourage rocketing executive pay, short-termism and unscrupulous business behaviour, mentioning the BHS scandal, which it says was a high street shop “sacrificed for the sake of a quick buck”. There will be rewards for firms that pay a fair wage and respect the environment.
Analysis: A new deal for business means a more onerous regime of regulation for large companies and support for small firms and exporters with extra funds for trade promotion and a state-backed insurance that guarantees payment for exports even when foreign buyers go bust. Big firms considered “systemically important” will be shielded from foreign takeovers and protected from foreign firms dumping cheap goods in the UK, but directors will owe a duty to employees, suppliers and the environment and not just to shareholders.
Companies will also need to abide by strict rules when bidding for government contracts: complying with rules on workers’ rights, environmental protection and paying suppliers on time. Controversially, bidding firms will need to show that their highest-paid employee earns no more than 20 times the lowest. This will prevent Serco, Capita, G4S and all the other big outsourcing firms from running Britain’s prisons and IT systems without dramatic reductions in top pay.
National investment bank
What the manifesto says:Labour wants to establish a bank devoted to lending £250bn over 10 years to large-scale investment projects that the private sector cannot fund and make a profit. Regional development banks will be created and a law would be tabled preventing branch closures “where there is a clear local need”. Backing for research and development would also be one of its aims with a target of reaching 3% of GDP – higher than the OECD’s 2.4% average.
Analysis: Many eminent economists, including former Bank of England policymaker Adam Posen, have supported the idea of an investment bank. Initially, funds would come from the public purse. But the bank, which would be underwritten by the state, could keep these funds in reserve and only lend the private funds that will pour in from pension funds and other institutions looking for an ultra-safe home for their cash. With the Treasury cutting back on borrowing, it is the perfect time for an investment fund backed by the state to boost major infrastructure spending
Defence and foreign policy
What the manifesto says:Supports the renewal of the Trident submarine system “but any prime minister should be extremely cautious about the use of weapons of mass destruction”. Suspend any further arms sales to Saudi Arabia. Party remains committed to “a two-state solution” in Israel-Palestine.
Analysis: Appears at first sight to square the circle on an issue that has been one of the most corrosive in Labour’s history. Unlike the 1983 “non-nuclear” manifesto, it is not promising to scrap Britain’s nuclear deterrent, although Jeremy Corbyn’s refusal to guarantee he would press the nuclear button, as expressed in the “extremely cautious” wording, somewhat reduces its value.
Trident spending forecast
Housing
What the manifesto says:Biggest council housebuilding programme for 30 years, with pledge to build “at least 100,000 council and housing association homes a year for genuinely affordable rent or sale”. Building new private sector homes will become a national infrastructure priority, with help to buy funding guaranteed until 2027. A pledge to end rough sleeping within five years includes 4,000 homes reserved for the homeless.
Analysis: Corbyn has pledged 1m new homes over five years. The manifesto does not quite put that figure on it but the scale of ambition is clear. At the 2015 general election, the Conservatives pledged to build a million new homes by 2020, but Labour claims housebuilding has fallen since 2010 to its lowest level since the 1920s. Previous Corbyn papers put a figure of £15bn a year on the cost of Labour’s housebuilding pledge.
housebuilding
Welfare
What the manifesto says:Promises to immediately scrap the bedroom tax, the punitive sanctions regime and reinstate housing benefit for the under-21s. A social security bill would repeal cuts in support to disabled people and adopt a new social model of disability, which means removing the barriers in society that disable people.
Analysis: Labour has promised to reverse the worst elements of Conservative social security policy from the past six years but the manifesto makes no attempt at serious reform of the welfare system.
Health and social care
What the manifesto says: More than £6bn extra in annual funding from increasing income tax on the top 5% of earners and increasing tax on private medical insurance. Guarantee access to NHS treatment within 18 weeks and being seen in A&E within four hours. Scrap NHS pay cap. Suspend planned hospital closures. Will put an extra £8bn into social care, including £1bn in the first year, to address the immediate crisis.
Analysis: This is expensive but is the one area of public life where throwing more money at it really could be the answer. The British Medical Association immediately responded by saying the NHS needed £10bn, not £6bn. All will depend on how the extra funding is raised. Simply focusing on the top 5% of earners is unlikely to yield the kind of sums needed. It will also mean massive expansion of the NHS workforce but there is little acknowledgement of the cost involved.
NHS waiting times
Best of the rest
• Labour will fund child burial fees for parents
• Plant 1m native trees
• Lower the voting age to 16
• Free public wifi in city centres and on public transport
• Inquiries into Orgreave, blacklisting and contaminated blood scandals
• National review of local pubs
• Poor roads – make utilities firms responsible for repairs.
• Ban third-party sale of puppies
• Enforce anti-bots legislation to prevent resale of sports/concert tickets.
Full moons are always a time of heightened hormonal energies. Police departments and hospital experience rises in incidents of aggressive behavior and lunacy during the pull of the full moon. As the tides rise, so do our emotions, pulled by the same energetic forces. The Supermoon on November 14th comes on the heels of an already tense and divisive (s)election cycle in the United States.
Exposing Corruption
Evidence of profound corruption by the Clinton Foundation and the disclosure of financial support for both ISIL and Hillary Clinton by the Saudi Royals has fueled momentum to the public unwillingness to accept corruption as “politics as usual”.
Accusations of hacking made by Clinton against Russia have been proven false but the build-up of NATO troops along the Russian border and a recent cyber-attack against Russia from inside the United States are real, as President Obama and our former Secretary of State Clinton moves us closer to a deliberate war with Russia.
Agents within law enforcement and national security agencies bravely honored their oaths to defend our constitutionally guaranteed rights from enemies, foreign and domestic; leaking the proof of corruption that permeates the Clinton Foundation, and manifested as system of “pay for play” in the Office of the Secretary of State under Hillary Clinton.
Julian Assange, WikiLeaks, the internet and social media have been the voices for the people in this election. Journalism has returned to the people and to the streets.
The Trump Card
Trump’s candidacy may have been politically strategized or even manufactured to make a corrupted Hillary Clinton appear to be the more tolerable choice. Then again, the millions of silent voters who have studied the corruption in government are using this unlikely wildcard to literally trump the Presidential selection process. With protest support from George Soros’ Move On, and Hillary Clinton’s challenge to the Electoral College, Donald Trump’s wildcard Presidency may continue to be so divisive that States may secede from the Union and realign with neighboring States, into Regional Governments. Such an outcome has long been desired by forces for Globalization and consolidation of power. If George Soros wanted to harvest a revolution on American soil to institute global governance, he must have assumed that we had forgotten our roots…and grossly underestimated our instinct for reason and independence.
The wide base of support for a Trump presidency, unrecognized by the MSM, came from those discarded and disaffected by long failed democratic socialist and Neocon policies alike. It came from those whose recognition of criminality in media and government stirred their consciences to disconnect from the status quo. It came from those who understood that freedom of speech has room to include the venting of suppressed resentments and suffering. It came from the lessons of the past beginning with the fact that all peoples who have given up the right to defend their persons and their property have been overrun by tyrants. The Second Amendment is key to the defense of our freedom. The tyranny of theocracy such as Islamic Sharia are incompatible with our constitutional, democratic Republic in as much as it is an obligation, particularly in the Saudi fundamentalist version of Islam to aggressively conquer and repopulate a host land as their own.
Trump’s support came from a vast range of people who realized that politically correct speech is a censure of the ability to sound an alarm when a threat is faced. His support came from those whose consciences demanded a break from corruption and were willing to work within a system of checks and balances to temper the blustery storm. Support came from those who recognized the build up to another unwanted and catastrophic war. Making no excuses for the bombastic behavior of Trump or his most vocal supporters, real support came from the reasoned logic that is unwilling to submit to the racism, sexism and violence inherent in the acceptance of Sharia law on American soil. Lastly, support came from those who believe in local and national government, in that order and who refuse to submit sovereign authority to the influence of either the Saudi terror network or to a global elite.
Supermoon November 14th
As the Supermoon approaches, it would be too simple to surrender to the impulse to anger, to revenge, to hatreds and violence. The provocateur most dangerous is the one that resides in our own frustration; the one who is justified is seeking or meeting out justice but will not find it in harming himself or others. Instead, the moon that heightens our assertive drive and our sexuality is also the moon that heightens our creativity, our ability to redirect energy into a positive idea or invention or way of interacting with another person. This is the energy that is a gift to each of us and a gift that we can share.
Traditionally, the November moon always marks a time of preparation for winter. It is a time of responsibility, of evaluation and looking forward. The seeds we have sown, both physical and spiritual, have come to harvest and now our stores are laden with the products of our intentions, our actions and the lessons of conscience.
As we prepare for winter and the deep reflection of the long night, let us reflect on the seeds that we have planted with our words and our intentions, with our actions and our inaction. Let us consider what we can learn from those whose voices have been ignored by the MSM. We have been too long distracted by propaganda, by revival tent politics, by twerking and texting and trusting others to tend to our lives. We’ve been told how to think and how to teach and how to depend on the Church and the State, when neither will tend our gardens. The seeds they’ve planted have tainted the harvest. What we now harvest is burdened with bitter weeds and hurtful, bitter words born from gardens poorly tended and starving from neglect. The harvest is heavy with rotted fruit and withered vines and with the stones that weigh down our hearts. Now we fear one another and the long cold nights with rancor and disillusionment. As tenders of our souls, like tenders of the land, we have reaped the harvest sown.
Consequences of Compliance
Our land and our homes, our water and our skies have been co-opted by corporate and government jurisdictions, treaty agreements, liens and lies. The water of life carries nourishment to plant and beast alike. It too has been tainted by our treatment of it as a lifeless resource. We have allowed its contamination with our waste and by use of chemicals, by fracking and by privatization to corporations owned by the political elite. We are made of water and minerals and the spirit that resides within. Without living water, we too will wither and the children will die. The awaited rains of winter will not save us if the water is not safe to drink.
Nature herself has been forced to adapt to the carcinogenic chemicals in Geo-engineering. Aluminum, barium and strontium fall from our skies damaging our bodies, our water and our soil. We’ve been forced to accept the raping of our land and our spirits to draw forth every resource past the point of regeneration and threatening the roll of these resources to maintain an ecological balance. The black snake pipeline trespasses the planes and promises to poison the garden. The protectors of the water are trying to save us all.
Our rights as free people have been weighed against threats to our freedom back room terror and false flag events. For too long we trusted in the globalization of care, when it was the globalization of corruption at play on our land. Our lives and actions are under constant surveillance, monitored and cataloged for control. We have been played, manipulated and nearly harvested as fodder in an effort to make permanent the cycle of a forever war.
As we process the harvest of this season, sorting that which nourishes from that which does not, we can give thanks for the disclosure of corruption, its tentacles reaching deep within our political and economic structures. We can give thanks that there are still those whose voices and discernment have challenged us to see and understand our world….and one another with clarity and truth.
It is said that we should never go to sleep angry. As we settle in for the contemplative sleep of winter, we are angry at one another in large part because we trusted others to tell us how to think and behave. We forgot that we are individuals whose unique points of view cannot be duplicated or replaced by an imposed consensus. Likewise, responsibility is first and foremost, personal. Giving authority away diminishes our potential to connect with the consciousness that underlies all of existence. Instead, it feeds the tentacles of a pale simulation of our reality. We mourn for those who have been lost to war, lost to lies and corruption. We mourn for those whose faiths have been manipulated by propaganda and war to hate one another. We mourn for the land and water and sky. We mourn because it took us this long to say “that’s enough” and “no more!”
As we sort our harvest in this season of change, remember that we must salvage our souls from the corruption into which we all grew complicit. Healing requires that we must address those whose participation in deceit made possible the bombing of children, the starving of continents and the genocide of cultures. Forgiveness will come only with contrition, reparations and the cessation of crimes.
An Agenda for Healing
Abolish fracking and restore the damaged waterways and lands. Make reparation to all those injured by the imposition or employment of fracking.
Revisit, replace or dismantle NAFTA, CAFTA and all global corporate treaties and trade agreements such as those who have driven Mexican farmers off of their land shifted American manufacturing out of the United States. Eliminate any and all trade agreements that supersede national laws with international decrees.
Dismantle the monopolies of corporate agriculture. Abolish terminator seeds and chemical herbicides. Encourage a return to family farms, non-GMO crops and urban gardening.
Restore non-chemical methodologies and natural technologies for the healing of our water, our skies and our land.
End the American Medical Association’s monopoly on defining health care. End the influence of the pharmaceutical industry on the standards of health care in the United States. Effective non-invasive and non-pharmaceutical healing modalities must be recognized and restored.
Rescind the Patriot Acts and other 911 legislation that militarized our law enforcement and created a surveillance state. The war on terror was manufactured to manipulate our participation in unending wars of profit by fostering, arming and radicalizing religious extremism and by sacrificing American lives in false flag events.
Restore to the inventors and families of inventors, the suppressed patents and inventions that may have long ago given us energy independence, free of “fossil fuels”.
Respect and restore all treaty agreements made between the Native American tribes and any agency or department of the United States Government. Stop the Dakota Access Pipeline.
American involvement in and military support for the endless wars in the Middle East must end. American and British involvement in the radicalization of terrorists now paid for by Saudi Arabia must end. The Middle East must come to a negotiated peace that respects all parties and persons without violence. China, Russia and the United State working in concert can encourage a negotiated peace in the Middle East. Healing and rebuilding must replace radial terror and eternal revenge.
American Christian support of Israel for the sake of forcing the fulfillment Biblical prophecy must be abandoned. Bring our troops home and help them to heal.
Saudi Arabia has spread fundamentalist Islamic Jihad by means of its extreme wealth and influence, weaponizing religion as a tool of conquest. Saudi inspired Muslim refugees who wish to maintain Sharia customs should be repatriated to the Saudi homeland.
End the Federal Reserve banking system. Abolish the debt money system controlled by those who own the Federal Reserve. Globalization projects, Agenda 21 and Agenda 2030, which seek the abolition of private property and the consolidation of resources under the authority of wealthy elites, must also end.
Climate change science must consider the influence of commercial weather manipulation for stock market profit on our weather cycles and climate change. Temperature shifts on other planets in our solar system indicate that our climate change discussion needs to consider the ramifications of climate impact our housing and lifestyles.
Disclose the pay for play system of corruption that has infiltrated our government and tainted our interactions with global powers and corporations. Hold all parties responsible, without Presidential pardon.
Conclusion
We can be grateful to have one another in this time of division, so that we can reach our arms out to reconcile our differences and seriously discuss those issues that divide us. We need not be of one voice, or one faith or one political persuasion. Consensus, like division, is for control or the many by the few. Personal sovereignty, personal responsibility and the protections of our rights as guaranteed by the Constitution and Bill of Rights……that is what we need.
In this time of reflection and contemplation, consider the potential for truly healing our world, our nations and ourselves. We may not have a better opportunity than we do at this juncture in time to “trump” the corruption, contamination and globalization of our nation and our world. As we contemplate under the light and strength of November’s Supermoon, let us find the light and strength within ourselves to disengage from corruption, restore our Constitutional rights, and restore our health and the health of the land, water and sky.
