We're two weeks into the General Election campaign and so I thought I'd give my thoughts on what we've seen.
The Tories have so far had a lacklustre campaign, based solely around Theresa May. There have been very few policy pledges and so far nothing to write home about. I'm wondering if the Tories are keeping their powder dry and will wait for Labour to show their hand before bringing out new policies. For their sake, I hope so. If they are going to win big anyway, it's better if they have a radical manifesto.
The Labour party have shown quite a lot of policies so far, and on the surface they look attractive. More money for NHS workers, more money for schools, more money for police forces to recruit 10000/250000 officers (depending on which paper Diane Aboot is reading), more money for social care. Of course the common theme is "more money". Now the left is in control of Labour they only have one answer for every problem. I wonder what their answer is to the problem of the £50 billion deficit!
The flip side of all the spending, is tax rises. Corporation Tax up, Capital Gains Tax up, Vat on private schools up, Fees on private health care. It's quite easy to see where this is going. The behavioural changes of tax increases means that in the long run, the tax take will be reduced, and so the tax rises will have to spread wider. Corporation tax gong up by a third is certainly going to have an effect. Since it has been reduced the tax take from corporate profits has gone up from £43Bn to £49Bn. No wonder Labour see this as a magic money tree.
The Lib Dems have had a bad start, with a whole week taken over by whether Tim Farron thinks gay sex is a sin. There have been mentions of 1p tax rise for the NHS, which is nice and won't be too bad but will have very little effect. One thing that struck me this morning is that Tim Farron has ruled out any pacts or deals with other parties, which means that there is no point to the LibDems. Unless they are an alternative government then a minor party can only ever have influence by teaming up with a larger party. They have been confined to irrelevance, and back to an old Lib Dem position. They finally found some realism going into the 2010 election.
UKIP are finished, and they know it.
The Greens have been banging on about a progressive alliance, but no one else is taking the bait. I don't know what other policies they may have.
Let's see where we get to in a couple of weeks time when the manifestos have been published.
Squiffy.
P..S. I'm looking forward to the Question Time editions with Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn. Both of them tend to stay away from the general public and go to events of loyalists. She will have to appear not robotic and he will have to keep his temper in check.
