Labour’s manifesto has been well received  by voters. That is because, unlike most manifestos, this one is special because of renewed democratisation of the Labour Party under the new leadership of Jeremy Corbyn.

There are too many policies to list them all here and more details about the manifesto can  found on line or by referring to the relevant documents here:

1. Real-Change-Labour-Manifesto-2019
2. Funding-Real-Change
3. Real-Change-Tax-Reliefs

The manifesto has been written from the grassroots up by ordinary people. Ordinary people know what ordinary people need, and that is why it is so popular. Voters are now more likely to  base their vote on the state of the NHS rather  than Brexit, and the NHS is  the primary concern of  over 60% of voters and concern is increasing. Here are a few highlighted policies of the  very extensive and comprehensive programme  planned, and fully costed by the Labour Party.

• Halt the privatisation of our NHS – and remove all traces of privatisation from our NHS
• Build 150,000 council and genuinely affordable homes a year
• Introduce a Climate and Environment Emergency Bill
• Create one million green jobs, a £250 bn ‘green transformation fund for renewable and low-carbon energy, and transport, biodiversity and environmental restoration
• 5.6 Bn to improve flood defences, prioritising North-West England, Yorkshire and the West Midlands.
• Bring back essential services such as water, energy, mail and rail back into public ownership
• Re-establish community policing
• Review border controls to make them more effective
• Eradicate in-work-poverty in the first term
• Establish a publicly owned generic drug company.
• Introduce a living wage of £10 per hour
• Scrap Universal Credit, stop works capability assessments and PIP assessments
• Deliver free and fast full-fibre broadband for all
• Reverse cuts to Sure Start, Create Sure Start Plus with services in all communities.
• Create a National Care Service with free personal care for over 65s who need it.
• Create a National Education Service – scrap university tuition fees and bring in maintenance grants
• Review school curriculum, bring ‘free-school’ and academies back under the control of those who know them best -parents, teachers and local communities
• Free school meals for all primary school children
• Close tax loopholes enjoyed by elite private schools
• Maximum class sizes of 30 for all primary school children
• Extend full voting rights to all UK residents from age 16 upwards.
• Regulate all education providers and reform alternative provision (AP)
• Compensation over a five year period for WASPI women whose pension age was suddenly changed without warning.
• Allow councils to regulate and take public ownership of bus networks.
• Introduce a ‘Right to Food.”
• Introduce a training bursary for nurses, midwives and allied health professionals

Contrast that with The Tory Party manifesto. It is conspicuous by lack of much of significance, and already much of it has come under criticism.  So many  of the Tory plans remain secret, because rather than serving ordinary people, they serve the Tory backers, the rich billionaires, whether it is US pharmaceutical companies, or Russian oligarchs.

Labour’s policies are popular, and maybe it is because of the scare-mongering by the billionaire backers through their tight control of the UK media, that is making people wonder whether this ambitious and radical manifesto is affordable. The manifesto has been fully costed and details given in the documents.

Perhaps the question should be, rather than, “Can we afford this ambitious programme?” but rather,”Where has all the money, the wealth produced by the workers of this rich country been going?”  While we are a rich country, this year we are seeing  an unprecedented ‘winter of discontent’ where the  figures show the waiting times for A and E are the worst ever, where social security payments are the lowest ever, where the levels of homelessness and poverty are the worst since WW2, when the 1945 Labour Government  launched  the NHS and the welfare state.

The first responsibility of any government is to protect the citizens, to ensure their security, that they are homed, safe, fed, have access to health care and, where able to access it, to employment. The Conservative Government has failed; it is negligent and, since austerity was a political choice,  guilty of electoral manslaughter.

So where has the money been going? The Tory press would have us believe that it has been wasted by people unwilling to work, immigrants, and seek to demonise and encourage people to blame each other, while diverting from the truth; it’s been going to the Fat Cats. I think the Fat Cats need to go on  a strict diet, because the whole system is crumbling and it is unsustainable. People are waking up to the truth and realising that they cannot trust this government, the Prime Minister, or the British media. These articles examine the imbalance in the wealth between ordinary people and the global elite and how it has come about.

• Corporate  benefit scroungers, like Amazon has brought this country to its knees.
• Tory ideology has always been about hand outs to the wealthy paid out to by the poor.
• The Hidden Welfare  State

The immense wealth of the global elite has been ensured by their funding and control of governments, and includes British Conservative Party, funded by lobbyists working in their own interests with  no concern for the welfare of ordinary people. The 2016 Referendum outcome was to leave the EU, but the Conservatives have used Brexit as a route to shafting the British people for the benefit of their billionaire backers.

• Paying little or no tax – Tax havens
• Tax breaks
• Enjoying huge subsidies
• Removal of employment and environmental protection regulations

The rich global billionaires have been using tax loopholes, which means that they pay less tax  (if any tax at all),  compared to small on-shore businesses struggling to operate in this skewed system.  It is no wonder that businesses are collapsing, high streets are boarded up, and  communities are crumbling. These global billionaires already have more money than they can ever need, and , even if they paid their taxes due, they would still be obscenely rich. This scandalous inequality will be addressed by the incoming Labour government.

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•  https://universalcreditsuffer.com/2018/06/22/hmrc-dwp-figures-show-they-are-responsible-for-the-majority-of-lost-money-not-benefit-fraud/ 
• Tax Justice Network: Labour to crack down on Tax Avoidance 
• Corporate  benefit scroungers, like Amazon has brought this country to its knees.
• Tory ideology has always been about hand outs to the wealthy paid out to by the poor.
• The Hidden Welfare  State