Someone has leaked the Corbynista manifesto…..or is it merely a photocopy of an old 1970’s one found in a bin somewhere?
The Telegraph spells out the truly dramatic implications of Corbyn’s giant leap backwards…
And…
Labour has produced a fantasy-land blueprint for a socialist Britain
The late Sir Gerald Kaufman famously dubbed the 1983 Labour manifesto “the longest suicide note in history”. The draft version of the party’s programme for the election on June 8 runs it a close second. It is as if the Blair years had simply not happened.
A government led by Jeremy Corbyn would renationalise energy and the railways. It would impose wage caps on businesses. It would water down the controls put in place to mitigate the levels of immigration caused by the last Labour administration, declare war on private education, introduce rent controls, freeze rail fares, abolish university tuition fees and render Britain’s nuclear deterrent almost useless.
The manifesto seems as rooted in the Seventies as its leader, who was also heavily involved in drawing up the 1983 document that took the party to its worst post-war defeat.
Quite clear what the Telegraph thinks of the manifesto…editorial hyperbole? No…an entirely accurate summation of the Corbyn project as it sets out to tax the rich until the pips squeak, nationalise industry, release the unions from their shackles and impose huge costs on the country to pay for a vast range of ‘populist’ policies designed to attract the easy vote…just where will Corbyn get the money to renationalise all those industries, to abolish university fees, to fund all the schools and all the new schools needed to educate those pupils who are taxed out of private education etc etc etc? Where does the hundreds of billions come from? Borrowing? And how do we pay that off? How does your kids or grandkids pay that off? Highly irresponsible policies designed for short term electoral gains based around buying votes rather than being a responsible government that shepherds its resources, nurtures the economy instead of leeching off it, and creates a future that does not burden today’s young with massive government debt….which means even more austerity in the future or bankruptcy.
However, read the BBC’s two senior political journalists and you’d really be none the wiser as to the dramatic and ruinous nature of Labour’s broadside to a modern and prosperous Britain.
Chris Mason and Kuenssberg produce two reports that are so anodyne and unchallenging that you’d think they were coming out of Labour HQ itself. Apparently this manifesto [not yet signed off] is entirely harmless…and indeed may be quite attractive to many we are told…Mason’s total analysis comes to this really…
There is meaty stuff in this, which some people will delight in seeing a big party [surely he means big government] advocate at a general election.
Others will label it a throwback to a different political era.
They both list massive spending commitments but seem entirely unconcerned about where the money will come from to fund them. The BBC’s ‘reporting’ puts a fine gloss on the manifesto and doesn’t critique it at all…indeed we get more than a hint of approval and less any sense of actual hard nosed examination of the proposals…consider the Telegraph’s blast…just one paragraph that says more than two complete BBC reports…..
The fantasy-land nature of the manifesto is underscored by a host of spending commitments made with total abandon – free school meals; double paid paternity leave; increased benefits; 10,000 more police officers; 3,000 additional prison staff; billions extra to be spent on the NHS and social care; higher public sector pay – all before the costs of renationalising FTSE-quoted companies has even been factored in.
The BBC unfortunately seems to be peddling the fantasyland politics and delusional economics of Corbyn’s Old Labour.
“Leaked” aka handed to the BBC to publish.
At the very least surely they could have done something more subtle, like a telephoto job on a transparent folder ‘accidentally’ left in a window facing W1A.
This one smacks of Thornbury and Abbott tottering in heels around the boxing ring in bikinis with it printed on a placard held by toned arms above their heads as the warm up act to drive the crowd (well, Laura and Nick) wild.
Thank you. Now tell me how I can unremember that concept.
Just think of Nick Robinson and Laura K and Norm currently po faced pitching that Labour are currently chilled about the BBC floating their turd for them, so all cool on the hacking front. And national broadcaster impartiality. Apparently.
Made me LOL anyway.
Thank you. Now tell me how I can remember that concept.
Spitting image frank Bruno puppet works for me Arrry..
Ha, Humphries on Today just instinctively referred to the reaction of the “Right-wing Newspapers” .
The giveaway that this is probably a collusion between the BBC and its political wing (Labour) to generate publicity and soften-up the public is simple. If this had been a genuine leak, the BBC would be heavily pushing the line: ‘It’s the Russians wot did it. Interfering in the electoral process as they did in the American and French presidential elections’. As it is, we can expect tomorrow’s line, when the manifesto from the 6th Form Common Room circa 1973 is officially released, to be: ‘Some may see this to be a throwback to old-style socialism, but there are no surprises and in the 24 hours since it was leaked people have gotten use to it and are starting to like the proposals…’.
Your BBC. As transparent and unsubtle as ever.
P.S. Someone should tell Mr Corbyn that the energy companies are already nationalised. It’s just that they happen to be owned by the French and German nations rather than the British one.
I totally agree – I wrote in the open thread – BBBC News at 10 last night spent 17 (SEVENTEEN!!) minutes covering a leaked manifesto that has not even been released yet. Totally pumping the election for Liebour, while repeating endlessly that there is no point voting Conservative because they will win, the only thing to do is vote for Liebior / LimpDim.
PS, funnily enough, in contrast to every other media organisation, the BBBC never mentioned Corbyn driving over their very own cameraman, and driving away. A notable omission, designed to avoid the impression that everything he touches turns bad?
In that Labour manifesto of fantasy the only thing that was missing was a return of the 3 day week and cold suppers by candlelight!
All followed by the winters of discontent.
the carden gnome corbyn apparently wants to blow another £250 billion on goodies for the sheeple to get the sheeple aka labour people, rapeugees and muslims to vote for the labour party. Meanwhile here in the real world we are in a £1.5 trillion deep hole and the garden gnome corbyn wants to dig the hole even deeper with another £250 billion plus of borrowed spending using failed [Since when if ever have labour policies worked] 1970’s labour/socialist policies. Has anyone told the garden gnome corbyn that loans have to be paid back. Anyone besides corbyn, his equally inept cronies and the BBC predicting a conservative landside ??
I believe that, in the past, the ONLY time I have ever agreed with Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn was when he stated that it was, indeed, a nice day. We hold such opposite ideas and views, of politics, of the very definition of terrorism, of economics, of everything concerning the governance of this Nation that it would be impossible to list the entirety of our disagreements.
Taking our disagreements as read; I freely acknowledge that the leaked Manifesto rings certain bells for the starry-eyed Corbyn supporters; the ones who paid their cash to join the Party and swept Jezza to power against the wishes and will of just about all the sitting Labour M.P.s, and many Labour elders, (at least, the ones who actually think) who can actually remember the contortions which the Labour Party had to accept and accomplish before a certain Anthony Blair took them to power back in 1997.
Those, who, like myself, can remember even further back in time, to the days when large stretches of the British economy were State-run, and, far from the glistening polish placed upon the words of that same manifesto, the stark reminders of the Union-run so-called industries resound ever louder. I can remember when entire shipyards were silent, struck down by union disagreements over such intricate activities as ‘who actually twanged the chalk-filled string which denoted where the boilermaker was allowed to flame-cut a steel plate. I also recall the miners’ strike, where thousands of bully-boys were bussed to attempt to stop coal being delivered to power stations, and the near-anarchy of the Union who attempted to bring down a Government.
The manifesto, an open call to bring Marxist philosophies into play by a Hard-Left would-be Government reads pretty good to the ‘faithful’, but it is a clarion call to a failed philosophy, a beacon which leads the path to only one end; defeat on such a massive scale that should spell doom for Corbyn, his side-kick McDonnell and his Communist Momentum buddies. At least the Labour leader is honest, and has nailed his colours, the Red Flag of Communism and Socialism; firmly to the Labour flagstaff; so that no-one can allege that anything was hidden, or disguised, or merely hinted at.
The Suicide Note has been written, and all that is now needed is for Corbyn to kick the chair away by placing his name to it, and the Tories will rule for a decade or more!
Well said. A superb summary, Grandpa, of the things the ‘older’ generation – we racist, homophobic brexiteers – actually lived through.
AKA the reality of socialism.
1958, by the way.
I have to agree GP with Corbyn’s attitude to the weather. He is, by his own standards, an honourable man and if he were to confirm the niceness of the day I’d probably be happy to agree with him.
The same assessment from John McDonnell, on the other hand, would definitely require a visual check.