266. Labour vs Conservatives: What do their manifestos reveal?

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1:50Hello, welcome to TheRestless Politics with me, Anastak Campbell. And me, Rory Stewart. Today we're doing Anastak, a manifesto special. And I just tell us honestly, how before you became an internationally renowned podcaster, how much detail did you normally read these manifestos? And how much detail do you think? I mean, who's reading manifestos in detail? Because I remember just to get a sort of terrible revelation. I think many of the MPs, it'll be a total surprise to you. I remember 2017, I was campaigning, I was out on the streets. The manifesto had been written in a very small room by Theresa May, friend of mine called Ben Gavrona, I think Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill, who were her special advisors.

2:34We got absolutely no say on what was in it. The cabinet didn't know what was in it. And of course, that was the manifesto that contained the announcement that became the death tax. And we were going to tax people's homes to pay for social care. Took her 20 seat, a 20 point lead and destroyed it and meant that she lost her majority. But anybody who thinks that these manifestos are generated by even at that stage, I was a relatively senior minister, you know, the home secretary. And I remember I'm regrowing me saying she hadn't read the manifesto. Yeah, well, this, this, this may I say, we're going to be talking mainly about labor and Tory manifestos.

3:11There is a process for labor party manifesto. So it gets agreed in a formal meeting by the National Executive and by others who are involved in that process. So I would say that this manifesto will have gone through the, it will certainly have gone through the shadow cabinet and it would have gone through the National Executive. I think one of Theresa May's problems was that she frankly that she didn't go through that sort of a process. And you know, when you have the whole cabinet or the shadow cabinet, as it was today, sitting there sort of just, you know, nodding along, they have to then go out and be part of the of the communication and the selling of this.

3:57So no, I think that when you say who reads manifestos, I mean, for example, back in 97, we actually, I think it was WH Smith. We got them to it says they're roaring settings camera instilling. So I don't know if I've got it. I've got it. I'm back and back and back and roading. So sorry. W H Smith. Yeah. So we actually, we actually did a, I think it was W H Smith. So we actually got the manifestos put into the shops. And of course, the front cover, it was an A5 thing. It was a big picture which, what's his name? Lord Snowden. We got Lord Snowden to do the cover photo, one of your kind of, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

4:32And then, and it was, actually was a very, very nice photo. Just as here today is the front cover. So we got engine news. They just now, nobody was pretending that millions of people were going to read them. But I think you'd be surprised how many people in, well, first, one of the most important things is the civil service now have it. They have it there. They now have a few weeks, assuming there's a little labor government, which most of them will be assuming they can now start to sort of work out. They've been doing a bit of work with it now. Have the thing. The second thing is lots of people in the public sector read them.

5:04Lots of lobbyists read them. Lots of different sort of think tanks and sort of academic world read them. And some people will actually go online and make through it. So, so, so let's just give us take a big step back and do a little bit of an explainer on on what we've got. So again, for, for people who aren't right in the weeds of these things, this is a moment where the conservatives have now announced their manifesto. And labours announced their manifesto. I mean, in, in simple terms, these are the programs for government. And they matter because if something is in a manifesto as a manifesto commitment, that generally means that all your MPs should be voting for it.

5:46And it also means that the House of Lords traditionally can't block the legislation. Those are the formal constitutional things. In formally, it's also incredibly powerful because it means that even NGOs, civil society groups and others who might want to challenge what you're doing are much less likely to do it if it's an manifesto. If you hold something back, and this is why Theresa may put this very bold thing in the manifesto and destroy her election, if you hold them back, and this is the risk is that you announce and it's non -human manifesto and you face all kinds of oppositions. Your MPs rebel, the House of Lords blocks it, the NGOs are out against you, public service and students are out against you.

6:29What do we see? We see a conservative manifesto called clear plan bold action secure future, which we can talk about a little bit. And then we have a labor manifesto called change, my change. And the labor manifesto is done in a much more elaborate way, at least as I'm accessing it online. Which, and I wonder whether that's partly that they're gathering data as you click on to the different categories. So you click on labor manifesto, you begin with rather a nice letter from Kierstthama with lots of pictures of him as you scroll down and then you hit labor's first steps, change mission driven, government strong foundations kick starting, you can't go, etc.

7:16The conservative manifesto reads as a more conventional document, more like the kind of stuff you printed in WHA to semester, right? Yeah, I think the, I've seen them both online, I don't have physical copies. I agree with you that I think that the conservatives are much, much more traditional sort of document. As you go through the labor thing online, you get little films pop up, you get endorsements, Patrick Valance, the chief scientific officer during COVID pops up, Richard Walker, the guy who was one of the, the people who were introducing Kierstthama today. It's he the Iceland bus. He's the guy from Iceland, yeah.

7:51Who, who I thought spoke very, very well, but he was perfectly clear to me that I'd been written by somebody who's in charge of the labor party message. It was sort of, you know, word perfect. I just think that Richard, I know a bit, he's done some very good work on prisons, but he was, I believe, a conservative candidate, so that's another big, big thing. I actually think that the, the introductions, there was, there was, there was more kind of VIM and confidence in the way labor projected it. They had Angela who spoke pretty briefly, just went through the kind of missions they had. Richard Walker from Iceland, they had a guy called Daniel who was a young guy married two kids living in a bedset, basically talking about struggling to get on the housing ladder.

8:36They had an incredibly moving, even I, and I'm, as you know, worry, I can be quite hardhearted. I did feel a little sort of pricks at the back of my eyes with the, with the tear ducts when this guy called Nathaniel, who was, who's basically dying of cancer and said he's just, you know, longs for a labor government so that other people don't have to have the treatment that he's had. And then a young woman called Holly, who was 18 first time voters. So they were, they were straight in, you know, business, poverty, health service, and, and young people. And I thought one of the things I said on the podcast last night, I really hoped that Keir Starmer didn't focus too much on the Tories and he said, this was very much, you know, this is what we're about, this is what we're doing.

9:20Okay. Quick, quick summary of contents of manifestos. And in some ways, one of the strange things is that people will be reading the labor manifesto much more carefully than the conservative manifesto. In some ways, the conservative manifesto is almost a historical document now, because they're not going to win the election. And it's, at most, it's going to be a sort of sinusite desperation, but I'll give you a brief summary of what's in the conservative manifesto. Not worth, I would suggest spending much time on unless you're a real political geek, because they're not going to do any of it. But, but this is, this is, this is what they, they claim they're going to do.

9:56First thing is they, they talk about their record. And that's one of the big problems the conservatives have going into this election. How do they talk about their record? Some of the things they say they've done, they actually have done. So, you know, I'm a, I was a conservative MP and it is true that employment figures are quite strong, formally and more jobs. They have cut taxes. They've cut taxes for certain bits of the population, the tax burdens are, but a lot of people in low incomes were taken out of tax and some people in low middle -ankonyx and have lower taxes. And they also boast about having achieved the best readers in the Western world.

10:35That's true. There's good statistics on the phonics programs on non -literacy. The second category of claims on their record are a bit more dodgy. So, they say they've built two and a half million homes that crime is down and that they've been increasing defense spending. Basically, their record on house buildings not great. A lot of people are very unhappy about crime and defense spending. Yeah, okay, maybe it's been increasing, but basically we have a terribly funded defense. They've boasted that they've got Brexit done, I suppose they did get Brexit done. The strangest one of all is they say vote for us where immigration is never allowed to run out of control and this is one of their fundamental problems.

11:23Maybe the thing I'll stop rabbating on at this point just to summarize the problem with the manifesto. They're going with immigration because they thought what they could do is squeeze the reformed party vote, a forage party vote by talking hard about immigration. And it's backfired spectacularly. They're not squeezing that vote. What they've actually done by putting immigration fronts and is to validate is to support Nigel Farage's position and also to point at their own record. And their own record is in fact that they led in 700 ,000 people last year, 700 ,000 people the year before when many parties in Britain have been talking about trying to keep immigration in the tens of thousands or at about the 100 ,000 level.

12:06This is historically very, very high levels of immigration. So they can't really go into this thing trying to sell themselves as the party that's strong on immigration. No, no, no. I mean, they really do have a problem with the record. And I think there are, you know, you said dodgy. There's so much stuff in the manifesto that is really, really quite dubious. There's one lawyer who's really leapt out at me. Where is it? They said, well, first of all, they say we are cutting taxes. Okay. Now, there are taxes that they are cutting. Okay. But they are not overall cutting taxes. And I saw an amazing interview yesterday with James Cleveley, the home secretary who said this manifesto has reduced tax.

12:53He actually was talking about the promises in this manifesto as though they had happened. He said, and what about Roy, what does this one mean? Last year, we delivered one, we removed one billion pounds worth of trade barriers per hour. What does that mean? Per hour. So per hour throughout the year. I don't know. So it means three hundred and sixty five times 24 billion pounds worth of trade which they removed. And they also say that they're going to continue to seize the benefits of Brexit with more trade deals. And Richard Fraser just put to comment on the comment, he said, getting Brexit done is like being proud of a car crash.

13:35Now we'll come onto Brexit later. I'm still struggling. So that's eight thousand seven hundred and sixty billion pounds worth of trade deals. I mean, that's that's that's that's not a six times six times the size of the entire British economy. Okay, let's just quickly finish because again, as I say, they're not going to get elected. So it doesn't really matter too much. But the most outrageous and irresponsible thing in it for somebody like me who's trying to argue for a more moderate sensible conservative party is that they've announced essentially 17 billion pounds worth of tax cuts. And they're not funded.

14:17They're really not funded. And those were going to come from getting rid of self -employed employees national insurance, which is a very actually a bad policy, a bad policy because it just causes perverse incentives in the system. In fact, in 2017, when Theresa May was in power and I was part of that, we were trying to do exactly the reverse. We were trying to move employers national insurance for self -employed people to the same level as for employed people to try to stop these perverse differentials. They were trying to abolish it entirely. They're trying to et cetera, et cetera. So we'll leave it there.

14:51Let me now jump on very quickly to the layman first. Do you want to provide a quick summary of the layman first? Or you like me to do it? What's that? Yeah, I mean, I, as a kid, Stammer made a virtue, really, of saying there are no big surprises in here. This is the, what he was, I think, trying to do was, was tell the story that they have been telling since he became leader of the labor party. I was pleased that he focused much more on labor and the country that he did on the Tories. There was very little Tory bashing and I think he should carry on in that vein. I was in white last night when I said that they clearly were going to try to land this idea that the labor of the party of wealth creation, this is a plan for wealth creation.

15:34He kept talking about growth, about wealth creation. And then I think in terms of the, there was a slight disjunct between his speech and the document itself in that, you know, he was really giving a kind of big picture in terms of the way that he was projecting it. When you read the document, there isn't, there, there are an awful lot of kind of detailed policy or detailed policy aspirations is what I would call it. And when you get to the, to the costumes and look, they all say they all say everything is costed, etc. As you just said, there's no way that the Tory manifesto is, they haven't even tried to cost it really.

16:17But if you go to some of the costumes of the labor manifesto, if you go right to the end of the of the document, you know, so let's just go through some of them. So they're talking for example, 40 ,000 more appointments, scans and appointments in the National Health Service. And that's 1 .01 billion. Okay. So 1 .01 says, by God, they've really worked this out. Double the number of NHS CT and MRI scanners, 250 million dentistry package, 125. And so it goes on. So there's got the policies funded on that side. And then you go to revenue, and it says revenue from closing further non -dom tax loopholes and investment in reducing tax avoidance, 5 .23 billion.

17:03Now, and that all I'd say is they all do it. And we did it in the past. Yeah. Yeah. If and when it comes to delivering, implementing the policies on the right that I'm looking at now, these will not necessarily be the numbers because they know we interviewed Rachel Reeves yesterday. Sorry, we interviewed Philippe C. C. C. C. C. C. C. C. C. C. C. C. C. C. C. C. C. C. C. C. She was making the point that sure start ended up and David Blunkett, I think, said the same, ended up being a lot more expensive when they actually delivered it. So these are kind of indicative numbers as opposed to what they say, fully costed, fully funded.

17:44And I think then you go through to the next one. And we're talking about the VAT on private school fees, six and a half thousand teachers, increased headteach training and all these things. And some of these are big numbers, some of them are small numbers. But I think what you're talking about is a quite a big shopping list of aspirations, things that they intend to do. But I think what he did do quite well was convey the message of reassurance, which he's been doing. But also there is a lot of change in here. Stepping back for a second to the big picture, one of the things that we just have to keep repeating again and again and again, because it's getting lost in this election is that there are currently 18 billion pounds worth of cuts already penciled in to the Conservatives forward spending plan, which have been accepted by Labour.

18:4018 billion pounds worth of cuts. And that's not including the extra 17 billion fantasy stuff that they just put in the in the in the Conservative manifesto. And these are going to come from unprotected departments. So in taking examples of something you and I both care about prisons. Current plans are to cut 4 ,000 prison officers. No idea how they're going to do that, but both Conservative and Labour have signed up to these things. So if Labour wanted to stop those cuts on unprotected departments, the 18 billion pounds worth of cuts, they would have to find another 18 billion pounds and were just to level pick or just to keep expenditure where it is now.

19:23If they wanted to have the money to do kind of big industrial strategies, not just stand still, but actually put in more money, they would need to find another, I don't know. Yeah. 20, 30 billion pounds on top. And when you go through, so both Labour have addressed prisons, they've addressed prisons by saying they're going to build more of them. They've addressed prisons. But exactly, but as you say, they'll build more prisons, but there's no money. I mean, no, I also say they're going to need prison officers. Yeah, they're going to build more prisons and they're talking about having a more rehabilitative approach inside prisons, although that also does not come cheap.

20:03So I think with a lot of these things, you'll find that what happens now with this manifesto is it gets turned into the priorities if they get into government, gets turned into a first -king speech, the legislative stuff that they have to do. I think it was pretty clear on the kind of big ticket items they're going to be in their GBNG, some of the tax changes they're going to have to make and so forth. But then there's an awful lot of stuff in there that I think they could pick on as the sort of, what I call the, the things that you can do without them being the biggest deal of all whilst you're taking time to do the bigger stuff.

20:42And there was more of that kind of thing in there than I was expecting. So one of the ones struck me, which I think is a really good one that presumed a UNI both violently agree on, is much more local devolution, much more power to local authorities, local mess. That doesn't necessarily cost you any money, something you can do through legislation. Planning reform could be another one, may not cost you a huge amount of money, if you've got the political will and the courage to drive it through. Stability certainty, again, if he would sign up to say ministers are going to serve a minimum of two years, get proper training in their posts, it's not really a misreach office, that doesn't cost you any money.

21:19The other stuff I'm a bit more skeptical about, there were four things, job centers, making work pay, reforming immigration, that kind of stuff I'm a little bit more doubtful, because that sounds like the kind of stuff the conservatives probably think they've been trying to do over the last 18 months and haven't managed to do. The modern industrial strategy, which is very important, is not a Biden type strategy, because it doesn't have any money. If you think about Biden's era, that is hundreds of billions of US dollars. You can't do that kind of industrial strategy with no money. You can do stuff around the edges, coordinate, change regulations a bit, the kind of stuff that Rachel Reese was talking about when we interviewed her, but it's not going to be an industrial strategy.

22:06In other words, this is a manifesto from Labour, which I'm here stealing from my great hero and God, David Gork, but he would say that it's been elevated from here to God. That still seems to be a manifesto that believes that Britain is a little bit small -sea conservative, and they can't afford to go into an election, saying they're going to raise taxes, raise spending. I was sort of wondering about that, with Rachel Reeves and Bridget Phillips, who we've been interviewing. I'd love to know from you, but I imagine their instincts in an ideal world probably would be to have a more Swedish social democratic system with probably a bit of higher taxes, higher spending.

22:50But they don't think they don't think that's where the public is, and they're real professionals, they want to win an election. I think you weren't even further than that. You kept saying that working people are paying too much tax already. It would be unfair to put more tax on working people. It was quite clear, though. I think we spotted this in the debate. It was with Beth Rigg beyond Sky last night, that they're absolutely parking on not being moved off, no rising income tax, no VAT, no rising national insurance, but beyond that, they're not saying much. I see that Paul Johnson, the Institute of Physical Studies, he has been pretty dismissive of both the manifestos in terms of their costumes.

23:37I think that was probably always going to be the case. But I still think that this in trying, putting all the kind of eggs in the growth basket, which they kind of are, and it's true, you can't predict. You can't be absolutely confident that all this stuff, whether it's planning, whether it's investment in skills, whether it's some of the inward investment thing, they obviously I think have got a lot of business and would investment lined up. Well, I know that from sort of talking to different people. There's all sorts of things. I think the mood around business investment is going to be pretty good.

24:15But ultimately, the economy growing is there are so many factors and forces involved in that that are out with the control of government. But I still feel that it was, I think it was a richer document than I was expecting. Again, footnote. I thought I guess we said this before, but just once more, those taxes, they've ruled out VAT, national insurance. They're the big ones. That's where 89 % of the money comes from. Where are they going to get money from? Possibly from a readjusting council tax bans. That doesn't make much money. When we looked at that in the treasury, when we were in government, it looked like it would bring in maybe half a billion.

25:05It's not going to get you towards the five billion. So the best idea of what they're going to do comes from Nick MacPherson who used to run the treasury. He reckons what they're going to do is they're going to put another tax on top of income tax. Now, it's a bit not in the spirit of things, but they'll probably call it something like a health and social care levy. So put another two, three, per se in income tax, but it won't be called income tax on national insurance. Be called a health and social care. Do you think they can get away with that? High -pothecation, we call that, don't we? High -pothecation.

25:38Do you think that's just about doable? Or do you think people might feel that's a bit against the spirit of things? I think that would be very, very difficult. I think it would be very, very difficult because they have been so clear. Look, I think they'll get, if they get a decent majority, if there is a sort of sense of real goodwill around change, they will have a period where they can do the whole thing basically saying things are a lot worse than we thought. They can do that. But it struck me that both will move towards organizational reefs and watching Keir's Dharma today and then previous debates that he's been involved in.

26:11I get a very, very, very strong feeling that really, really don't want to do that. He's not giving himself that much wriggle -room around that kind of thing. He really does not do that. Don't forget, he's also, this was very, very clear in the way that he was dealing with a lot of the questions as well. He really is putting himself up there as saying, in a way that Sunak has now been very, very badly damaged. The worst part for Sunak in that debate last night was when Beth Rigg was going through his five, no ifs, no buts, hoping to. So if Keir's Dharma were to go against some of the really cast iron stuff that he's been saying, then I think that becomes a problem quite quickly.

26:53By the way, we should just mention on Brexit. Brexit is mentioned in the manifesto, but it's mentioned in a very kind of, we are not rejoining the single market. We are not going back into the customs union. We are not bringing back freedom of movement. Then it goes into talking about new defence partnership, veterinary staff and all this. Again, I was quite disappointed that I think pins them in far too tightly. So Nick says there was no need whatsoever for labor to explicitly rule out a single market. Simply rooting out returning the EU for now would have been sufficient. Single market, the EA from outside the EU, still Brexit.