The Tories published their manifesto yesterday, but is anyone paying attention? The party that has been in power for 14 years has published their manifesto and in it the Tories are generally pledging to do more of the same, but better. In a bid to try to retain power their manifesto has attempted to persuade people on the right and the left to vote for them with policies designed to please everyone, amidst a backdrop of seemingly pleasing no one.
Rishi Sunak got up to the podium in Silverstone and delivered the manifesto launch by highlighting the main parts of this manifesto. The manifesto starts by saying how tricky things have been but how much credit the PM should get for creating the environment from which he can start cutting taxes. This shows that Sunak is mostly focusing on the economy, with 52% of the voters saying that the economy was on the top 3 priorities for them. The manifesto promises to cutes taxes, the main one being National Insurance. Sunak promises to cut National Insurance to 6% from the high of 12% that it was this year, giving £1350 for the average worker per year. The long term ambition is to cut National Insurance until it’s gone but there is no timetable. The Tories even plan to cut National Insurance altogether for the self-employed immediately. He also promised the ‘Quadruple Lock’ on pensions, promising never to tax the state pension. There will also be no new taxes on Net Zero.
There is no promise in the manifesto to cut inheritance tax.
Rishi Sunak promised to stop the boats and now the Rwanda policy is still there. There will be flights starting in July, but the manifesto does not commit to leaving the European Court of Human Rights, as it simply says they will put the interests of Britain first. On legal immigration, Sunak promises to put a legal cap on it, bringing it down every year, but there are no numbers.
For young people they promise 1.6m new homes to 2029, raising the threshold for stamp duty to 400,000 pounds. They want to introduce a form of National Service to skill up young people, though this is not for the army explicitly, but for services like health etc. They promise 100,000 new apprenticeships, getting rid of ‘mickey-mouse degrees’ at university.
There is nothing new in this manifesto from what they have announced already. The manifesto itself is designed to be a ‘continuity’ manifesto, appealing to those who effectively don’t like change from what is going on at the moment. The Tories are trying to pitch themselves as the ‘steady-as-she-goes’ party. There are policies that they are trying to throw the Reform Party off with like National Service, without alienating the centrist conservative base like promising a cap on immigration with a number, or promising to do anything about multi-culturalism. This is predominantly a centrist manifesto with right-of-centre bells and whistles.
Who is listening though? Honestly, who on earth is listening to this? After 14 years the Tories are saying from now on they’ll try harder. With the highest tax burden we’ve ever had, with immigration at record levels and an NHS with record waiting lists, with sewage being dumped in rivers, pro-Hamas protests taking place every week in the capital and a general pessimism around the country, the Tories are inauthentic.
The Tories are making themselves out to be the low-tax party, yet they have consistently frozen tax thresholds so rather than cutting taxes people have been paying more in income taxes through fiscal drag. By next year over 8 million people will be paying the top rate of tax. Promising to not put new green taxes on people is fine, but every person is paying 20% on their inflated energy bills already, as wind companies rake in gigantic profits from energy production being pegged to the price of gas. They do not promise to remove stealth taxes and double taxation and reneging on their plan to abolish inheritance tax is yet another disingenuous act. They are for high taxes. The National Insurance cut will be paid for by the continuity of high tax elsewhere.
On immigration, it’s more of an insult to say what they say now. In 2010, 2015, 2017 and 2019 they promised to control legal migration, and they are promising again as the situation has become more and more intolerable to a majority of the population. It is terrible to say people lie in politics, but on this one this is a stone cold lie. And as has been mentioned in the article recently about immigration; no flights are going to Rwanda. The Rwanda bill has been designed to be overruled by the ECHR when it could have not been.
On housing, the party has been in power for 14 years and despite the target needing to be around 600,000 per year the Tories have struggled to get to 200,000. Tory MPs consistently vote down planning permission and there is no desire from the Tories to remove EU policies on restricting land building with regards to CO2 targets. House building has also been terrible; building expensive houses in rural areas and luxury apartments in the cities for foreign millionaires to buy as asset investment brings down the number of affordable housing to frightening levels. Also, expensive houses rakes more in for the treasury in the form of Leaseholding, higher stamp duty and council tax. It all adds up.
Labour;s shadow Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, criticised the manifesto as having a 30bn pound black hole in it. Though this is what shadow ministers do, she is not wrong, but if Labour promise to do what they want to do without admitting they will have to raise taxes too then she herself is being disingenuous, and the Labour manifesto is likely to have the same costing problem.
For the general public, this Tory manifesto is going to be ignored. The Tories cut National Insurance earlier this year by 2% and there was literally no change in the polls. No one is listening to them and they know it. The party is horrendously split and the likes of Robert Jenrick and Stella Braverman, two big hitters on the right of the party, have indirectly suggested that they will publish their own manifesto. There were rumours that Sunak was going to step down last weekend after the D-Day gaffe. Local Tory campaign literature barely features the Tories or Sunak in it. There was a rumour that last Monday the Tory campaign had run out of money to fund their social media advertisement. Polls show the Tories now just 1 point ahead of the Reform party. The Reform party is now polling ahead in the North-East, North-West, the Midlands and parts of the South of England of the Tories, and among men in the country ahead of the Tories. The Tory Party chairman had an aide abruptly pull a disastrous Sky News interview after he failed numerous times to answer a question on being parachuted into the constituency of Basildon after deserting his previous constituency in the north. The Tory grassroots are furious that Sunak aides and allies have been parachuted in and have shunted away local Tory candidates in the dwindling safe seats in the country. The Tory party is genuinely in the worst state it’s ever been in.
The Tory manifesto launch was greeted by a North Korea-style applause by people who resemble the final battle scene in ‘Carry on Up the Khyber’. The roof is falling down, gunshots springing through the window and the Tory party simply goes on its merry way by having a wonderful dinner. Laughing at the Tories, though, would be a compliment because it would mean that people are still paying attention to them. A few are, but that’s because of morbid curiosity or tribal allegiance. Other than that it’s just a sad bunch of people in wet suits, holding a book with pages falling out of it, with a megaphone that’s broken.
This article first appeared on the TDL Times. For more information, articles and more please visit www.thetdltimes.com.
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