Party Chairman Eric Pickles gives his daily take on the election campaign. He is pictured here on the campaign trail with Henry Smith in Crawley earlier today...
My old chum Henry Macrory from CCHQ has a well thumbed copy of George Orwell’s Animal Farm. With 1984 and its use of double-speak it might be the Labour spinners manual. He noticed a striking resemblance to an early cover of the masterpiece and the Labour’s 2010 manifesto - chilling in a semi-comical kind of way. I have commented on their use of the sunrise before, it is in the eye of the beholder: someone’s sunrise is someone else’s sunset.
There was nothing much in the bundle of half thought out policies that makes up their pledges to the electorate other than a vague indication that they would fit in very well within Labour’s 13 years of broken promises.
The most interesting announcements are the ones they shamelessly stole from the Conservative Party. We have identified 5 so far:
- Any government-controlled appointment with a salary over £150,000 will require ministerial sign-off;
- Pay as you go home energy insulation;
- No stamp duty for first time buyers for house purchases below £250,000 for 2 years;
- New national non-emergency service telephone number 111;
- Promote the transfer of buildings and land into the ownership or control of voluntary and community groups.
The Labour Party might have done better to postpone their manifesto launch until after the Conservatives - then they could have stolen a whole load more.
These are my suggestions for a couple of promises they may care to steal from us:
- Abolish Labour’s Jobs Tax that will kill the recovery; and
- Stop spending public money on government waste.