The 2017 manifesto was launched at Bradford University
"Our manifesto offers hope … Our manifesto is for the many, not the few", said Jeremy Corbyn
🧵
It was described as "Corbyn's sharp left turn" by @theipaper
The front page emphasised tax rises on the rich, scrapping tuition fees, public ownership of water, energy and rail
And the pledge to build "at least 100,000 council and housing association homes a year" ...
That "sharp left turn" helped Labour narrow a 24 point polling gap at the start of the campaign to a 2.4 point gap on polling day.
Labour gained seats in an election for the 1st time since 1997, and increased the Labour share of the vote by more than at any election since 1945
When @YouGov asked why 12.8 million people voted Labour in 2017, the No.1 reason was "Manifesto / policies":
The current Leader Keir Starmer said in 2020:
"We should treat the 2017 manifesto as our foundational document. The radicalism and the hope that inspired across the country was real"
Indeed, the first 9 of his 10 pledges were broadly lifted from the 2017 manifesto:
The pledges were "based on the moral case for socialism" with "no stepping back from our core principles":
Even the Tories have taken on some of the agenda:
Labour, 2017: Raise corporation tax from 19% to 26%
🔵The Tories have raised it to 25%
Labour 2017: Public ownership of the railways
🔵The Tories have brought four franchises into public control
And the core policies 'For the Many, Not the Few' remain necessary and popular:
🌹Tax the wealthy
🌹Public ownership of core utilities
🌹End austerity and properly fund public services
🌹Strengthen workers' rights
🌹Build council housing.
There is still a world to win ✊
🧵ends
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Nigel Lawson was undoubtedly the most influential Chancellor of my lifetime.
Although in his later years he was rightly regarded as a French villa-dwelling Brexiteer hypocrite and a climate change-denying crank, in his prime he reshaped the British economy and state ... 🧵
As Thatcher's longest-serving Chancellor he was key to her project
“our policies aimed at a conscious break … with the entire post-war political consensus … to change the change the entire culture of a nation from anti-profits, anti-business, government-dependent lassitude”
The Thatcher Government under Lawson privatised, liberalised and deregulated.
They tore up the social-democratic consensus of post-war Britain instituted reforms Lawson characterised as “pro-profit, pro-business, [with] robustly independent vigour and optimism”
Note as well, he says it's fuelling "anti-social behaviour", not "crime".
ASB is a dangerous catch-all term for "things people complain about".
ASB is simply a device for criminalising non-criminal behaviour - simultaneously wasting police time and harassing young people
Politicians complain about the low conviction rate for serious crimes like rape and burglary - and then say they want the people enforcing a ban on laughing gas and to crackdown on young people loitering in parks.
What about Barry Sheerman - an MP on the right of the Labour Party?
He sent two clearly antisemitic tweets in August 2020. Was the whip withdrawn? Was he suspended? No thejc.com/news/uk/labour…
Keir Starmer appointed Martin Forde QC to investigate the #Labourleaks report.
Forde found that senior staff in the party insulted Diane Abbott, using “expressions of visceral disgust, drawing (consciously or otherwise) on racist tropes.”
NEU ballot result: teachers have voted overwhelmingly for strike action:
✅Teachers in England 90% on a 53% turnout✅
✅Teachers in Wales 92% on a 58% turnout✅
✅Support staff in England 84% on a 46% turnout
✅Support staff in Wales 88% on a 51% turnout✅
Kevin Courtney outlines a national strike day on Wed 1 Feb, and a two-day strike Wed 15 Mar and Thu 16 Mar - if necessary - with regional strike dates in between in late Feb/early Mar.
Emphasises doesn't want any of these strikes to take place, and wants the Government to talk
A report entitled ‘Social Insurance and Allied Services’ (which became known as the Beveridge Report) was published on 2 December 1942 ... 🧵
Labour MP and Minister without Portfolio, Arthur Greenwood, in charge of reconstruction in the wartime coalition, had appointed Liberal peer Sir William Beveridge in 1941 to inquire into social insurance ...
In January 1942 Beveridge had declared his aim, “the total abolition of that part of poverty which is due to interruption or loss of earning power.”
He identified and sought remedies to attack the “five giants of Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness.”