George Monbiot: The climate crisis demands radical green policies. Unfortunately, Labour doesn’t have them
It’s a story of the good, the bad and the absent. There are some strong green policies in Labour’s manifesto. It will greatly increase investment in wind and solar power, block new licences for oil and gas fields, improve rail and bus networks and upgrade 5m homes. It will end the pointless badger cull, take action against polluting water companies and “expand nature-rich habitats”.
Unfortunately, these are counteracted by some powerful anti-green policies. Labour intends to sustain oil and gas production “for decades to come”. It says “we need to forge ahead with new roads”, though it doesn’t say why. It will force them through by “slashing red tape”, which means ripping up regulation. It promotes discredited snake oil remedies, such as carbon capture and storage (failed for 25 years) and “sustainable aviation fuels” (don’t exist, never will). The sole purpose of these fantasies is to avoid conflict with powerful interests while creating an impression of action.
But what really jump out are the absences. Where is the matching of climate policy to scientific knowledge? Where are the targets for nature restoration? Or for waste reduction? Where are the policies for dietary change or a shift in transport modes? Where is the protection for soil or marine ecosystems? Where is the rescue package for our collapsing regulators, without which environmental law is a dead letter?
Labour presents itself as a serious alternative to Tory failure and dysfunction. But it fails to engage seriously with the greatest dysfunction of all.
George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist
Polly Toynbee: At last, education policies with our children at their heart
The signals are all there, in surprising detail: schools will become more welcoming places, with more of a focus on art, sport, drama and music. The intention is for children to “find their voices”, and for art and music to no longer be the preserve of a “privileged few”. After the Gradgrind curriculum of the Conservative era, this is a refreshing change in tone.
Labour will provide free breakfast clubs, which will let parents get to work on time, together with access to “specialist mental health professionals” who will not only comfort children, but ease over-burdened teachers. And those teachers will be bolstered by 6,500 new recruits – and no more one-word damnations from Ofsted. The party has put early years first, with 3,000 new nurseries opening in empty primary school classrooms, providing much-needed childcare in places where private nurseries are lacking. The shadow education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, understands the importance of starting young, as once pre-schoolers fall behind, everything that comes afterwards is remedial. Although there was no mention of reviving Sure Start, this, surely, is the seedcorn.
For adolescents, Labour will open youth hubs, and further education will get a revival, with technical excellence colleges providing good apprenticeships and second chances to young people. The manifesto notes that our universities are “world-leading”, yet there was nothing here to solve the financial crises they face. Life chances for children are back as Labour’s prime purpose, but their resolve will be tested in the scramble for funding.
Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist
Devi Sridhar: Labour’s NHS pledges are promising – now they need the staff to deliver them
The focus on cutting NHS waiting times, increasing the number of GPs, dentists and mental health staff, and doubling the number of cancer scanners are all welcome steps forward. But I worry that the manifesto ignores some deeper challenges. The word Brexit appears only once, yet this is a key reason there aren’t enough NHS staff. This isn’t a political statement, but a fact. Where will the people come from to deliver these services? Who will deliver the faster cancer diagnoses and treatment? These staff need to feel valued and compensated appropriately. They are literally dealing with life and death each day and are currently working in a (nearly) broken system.
Preventing ill health gets a brief mention. There are pledges to reduce smoking (on which Britain is already performing well ahead of other countries), and to regulate junk food. But we need more action on this if we’re to shift our health service away from treating the symptoms of ill health and towards preventing them. This will require healthier diets and more physical activity, both of which require investment, and both of which the manifesto is largely silent on (there is no mention of subsidising healthy foods, for example). Labour hasn’t explicitly said which of its tax raises will fund improvements to the health system, though one of the big wins in office would be its Covid corruption commissioner, which would recoup taxpayer money that could be reinvested in the NHS. Yet more money – and crucially, more staff – will be needed.
Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh
Jonn Elledge: These plans are more for drivers than public transport users, but there are hints of radicalism
The Labour manifesto is approximately 26,670 words long, only slightly shorter than Animal Farm, but dedicates fewer than 500 of these to transport. Among them you will not find HS2, Northern Powerhouse Rail, Bakerloo or Crossrail.
It feels significant, in fact, that the first and longest part of the transport section is dedicated to roads. There’s talk of fixing potholes (a highly visible and relatively easy win, to be funded by scrapping a single contentious bypass), and addressing the soaring cost of car insurance (with no clue given as to how). “Cars remain by far the most popular form of transport,” the text notes. This is especially true in swing seats.
Only after drivers have been reassured does the document turn to public transport. The rail section contains no surprises: nationalisation by attrition as franchises expire, with mayors to get extra powers to design services. It’s positive but not transformative: there is no commitment to build the new lines required to substantially increase capacity.
The manifesto does promise to expand the ability of local governments to plan their own bus networks, as London always has and other cities are exploring now. The longstanding ban on municipal ownership will be lifted, too: all this could add up to a return to the world of municipal corporations, when transport was both public service and revenue raiser. The document also promises to clean up the roads and provide the car industry with greater certainty. Labour says it will roll out more EV charging points and restore the plan to phase out new internal combustion engine cars from 2030, which Rishi Sunak pointlessly scrapped last autumn. It’s cautious – but there are hints of radicalism.
Jonn Elledge’s new book, A History of the World in 47 Borders: The Stories Behind the Lines on Our Maps, is out now
Peter Apps: Amid the few positive housing policies, there’s little here for aspiring homeowners and renters
There are some positive policies here, but also a major lack of ambition. Those looking for answers to the big housebuilding challenges – a shortage of workers in the construction sector, a desperately under-resourced planning system, and a model that has never delivered enough homes in the right places – will not find them here.
Labour’s commitment to building a generation of new towns is objectively a good one. But the postwar version of this policy was delivered with big investment in council housing and major Treasury backing. There is no hint of that here. Some policies are welcome improvements – the party is prioritising the delivery of social rented homes, and will review the high discounts available on right-to-buy properties. It will scrap “no-fault” evictions, too, and its proposal to impose Awaab’s law – a mandatory requirement for landlords to fix serious hazards – will come as a mighty shock to cowboy buy-to-let landlords, if it is properly enforced.
But opportunities have been missed. The party’s promise to fix post-Grenfell building safety issues is curiously vague. To really make a dent in the crisis, it should increase affordable housing budgets and scrap right to buy outright. People can’t currently afford their rent – a situation that Labour could address with rent control, higher benefits, or a vast increase in social housing, none of which it has proposed.
For aspiring homeowners, Labour’s promise to increase supply would at best stabilise prices. Their “comprehensive” mortgage guarantee scheme might even increase them. And for all of the voters caught in the grip of a punishing housing crisis, there is little here to make them believe in the word printed in big red letters on the opening page: change.
Peter Apps is the author of Show Me the Bodies: How We Let Grenfell Happen
Frances Ryan: In terms of social security, this is a manifesto that will be defined by its omissions
The Conservatives have torn the welfare state to shreds. Labour’s cautious manifesto promises some sticking tape, but shows next to no ambition for fixing it back together. There is some good (albeit largely already released) news: scrapping or reforming the work capability assessment; tackling the Access to Work backlog for disabled people; a vague pledge to “review” universal credit to make work pay; and a cross-government strategy to end homelessness.
Yet this is a manifesto that will be defined by its omissions. In a 132-page document, there was apparently no room for a section on social security. That means no word on whether Labour would scrap Conservative plans to tighten eligibility for the flagship disability benefit, personal independence payments (Pip), nor a pledge to reform the faulty assessment system. There is no plan to scrap or reduce benefit sanctions, despite all the evidence showing they don’t work. On the contrary, there will be “consequences” for those not looking for work.
Labour promises “an ambitious strategy” to reduce child poverty, but it consists of little else beyond free breakfasts in primary schools and regulating the private rental sector. The party made no pledge to overturn the two-child benefit cap, despite much pressure to. Such a choice makes neither moral nor financial sense. Removing the cap is widely recognised as the most effective and affordable way to reduce child poverty. To Starmer’s team, the success of this manifesto will be measured by how little it rocks the boat. But Britain’s safety net cannot be rebuilt with restraint. It will require radical reform and large-scale spending – and wealth taxes to pay for it. The millions of people skipping meals cannot afford to wait.
Frances Ryan is a Guardian columnist
Kojo Koram: There’s nothing here to tackle the root causes of crime: social deprivation and rising poverty
Given Labour’s crippling fear of doing anything that could be deemed radical, there was little chance that the criminal justice section of its manifesto would be full of innovative ideas. Even so, the tone of its pages is particularly uninspired, recycling the same tropes that “law and order” candidates in the western world have wheeled out since Richard Nixon ran under that same slogan in 1968.
The manifesto promises to “return law and order to our streets” by increasing numbers of police officers and prisons. As if this has never been tried before. We are told that there will be “thousands of extra officers” with “more powers” despite recent scandals where police officers have abused them. At a time of an acute shortfall in public finances, the manifesto commits to spending money “to build the prisons so badly needed”, even though England and Wales already has the highest per capita prison population in western Europe.
Aside from the promise of new youth hubs to help vulnerable young people, there is nothing here to tackle the root causes of crime – social deprivation and rising poverty. The party has pledged to address misogyny in schools, and help abandoned Windrush victims, both of which are laudable aims. But the deeper message of its manifesto is worrying. Labour should be learning from approaches to criminal justice that actually work to reduce crime. Instead, Starmer’s party is far more concerned with feeding the British tabloids enough red meat to stop them from focusing their bloodlust on the new government.
Dr Kojo Koram teaches at the School of Law at Birkbeck, University of London
Zoe Gardner: Labour will reverse the worst Tory assaults on immigration and asylum. Yet its own plans are frustratingly vague
Labour’s refugees policy leaves much to be desired. It promises the bare minimum: a functioning asylum system that processes claims and intends not to warehouse people indefinitely, or send them to Rwanda. They will recruit caseworkers, process claims swiftly, and end asylum hotels. All of this reverses the worst Tory vandalism – but it will take time, care and resources to achieve in practice. Instead, funds are more likely to be focused on a new returns unit and fast-track removals – approaches that are costly and often ineffective. The manifesto makes no commitment to any safe routes of entry to the UK or to the asylum system from abroad.
The section on migrant workers is, if anything, vaguer still. It contains a promise to reform the points-based system, which could signal that the party plans a much-needed change to uncouple work visas from employers, reducing systemic drivers of exploitation. A commitment to improving the enforcement of labour standards is promising, too, but protections for migrant workers reporting abuses and exploitation are essential within that system. Reducing the net migration numbers is an arbitrary concession to anti-migrant feeling, and not a serious component of a plan for the economy, better work opportunities, or public services.
There’s no mention of overhauling the immigration system for families – be it on fees, settlement, integration, or pathways to citizenship. If Labour wins power, it will face a country in which increasingly extreme and sometimes racist rhetoric is being used to divide us. We can only hope it is keeping its cards close to its chest – and has further plans to address the precarious status migrants are placed in, both by the visa system and this toxic form of politics, once the election is won.
Zoe Gardner is a writer who specialises in immigration policy
Simon Tisdall: Labour needs more steel in its foreign policy – showing the world a smiley face is not enough
Shadow foreign secretary David Lammy says a Labour government’s foreign policy will be based on “progressive realism”. Countries should not have to choose between their values and interests, he argues. This sounds impressive, but too often it’s an attempt to have it both ways.
Labour’s manifesto reflects this ambivalence. It talks a good game, but lacks ambition. It promises a fresh start with Europe, including a UK-EU security pact, and “unshakeable” support for Nato. The aim (not a firm commitment) is to raise defence spending to 2.5% of GDP. Labour remains adamant it will not seek to rejoin the single market or customs union, or reinstate freedom of movement. Why on earth not? Polls suggest most voters now recognise Brexit was a terrible blunder. Not having the courage to say so, bluntly, and fully reach out to Europe is an own goal Labour will regret, especially as Trump-era America becomes a less reliable partner.
Pusillanimity is a recurring theme. If Ukraine is to avoid defeat, if peace is to come to Palestine, if an increasingly aggressive China is to be seriously deterred, bolder, braver agenda-setting, change-making steps are required. They’re absent. And why cling to an at-sea nuclear deterrent that is unaffordable, malfunctioning and controlled by the US?
There’s much that is encouraging here: the emphasis on rebuilding Britain’s ravaged overseas aid programmes, using soft power to repair national reputation and leverage, standing up for international law, re-establishing lost leadership on climate. But steel is lacking. Showing the world a smiley face is not enough. Neither national values nor national interests will be best served by timidity. Nor will voters.
Simon Tisdall is the Observer’s foreign affairs commentator
Larry Elliott: So Labour will rely on growth to deliver change. It may get lucky, it may not
Turn the page. End the chaos. No more sticking plasters. There was certainly no shortage of warm words from Keir Starmer as he presented Labour’s manifesto, a document that can be boiled down to a simple proposition: that tough choices can be avoided by speeding up the economy’s growth rate.
Starmer reeled off ways Labour would achieve this: a modern industrial strategy, reform of the planning system, a national wealth fund, a publicly owned clean energy company. There is nothing wrong with these ideas. Reform of the planning system to speed up infrastructure projects and to build more homes is welcome and long overdue. That said, they don’t represent a radical overhaul of the economy’s supply side, and in any case they will take time to work.
Let’s be clear: the economy might start to speed up, no matter who wins the election. Inflation is down from its peak and interest rates will soon start to fall. Labour might get lucky. For the time being, the safety-first approach makes sense. Labour is like a football team that has lost four games in a row and now – largely due to the own goals scored by its opponents – stands within a few minutes of a famous victory. To close out the game, the manager hauls off his star striker and replaces him with a defender. But while taking no chances might be the right formula for winning on 4 July, it might not work so well in government. The fans could quickly turn nasty.
Larry Elliott is the Guardian’s economics editor
Charlotte Higgins: The sentiments are strong, but where are Labour’s concrete plans for arts and culture?
It’s not exactly inspiring, the blink-and-you-miss-it culture section of Labour’s manifesto. It feels like it could have been written by an AI generator. “Culture is an essential part of supporting children and young people to develop creativity and find their voice,” it points out. Labour has a plan for the “creative industries sector”, it tells us, though what that plan may be, it does not say. It will work nicely with the BBC. It will “support children to study a creative or vocational subject until they are 16”. It will force underfunded national museums to spend time and money they don’t have on lending artworks to “communities across the country” – great idea if the resources were actually there. It will end ticket touting. Without saying it will increase access to music education, it says Labour will increase access to information about available music education.
It fails to acknowledge the role that the arts can make in igniting the imagination and in people’s ability to dream better futures, for themselves and their communities. There’s nothing on fixing the collapse in local authority funding, nothing concrete on the arts in schools, nothing on the creeping privatisation of the arts. Naturally, it completely fails to acknowledge that the arts need more money – tiny amounts, compared to the government’s overall budget, that could really bring about change to people’s lives across the country. Actor Imelda Staunton’s approving quote in the manifesto miraculously seems to say more than the document itself about Labour’s arts policy. If the manifesto is an exercise aimed at saying vague things blandly, then it has succeeded; one can only hope that the actual plan for power is more impressive.
Charlotte Higgins is the Guardian’s chief culture writer
