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The Tory manifesto comes from the pen of a fracking lobbyist while Labour’s distils the ambitions of grassroots members
Now that the two manifestos have launched, we can look at them side by side, and the contrast could not be more stark: Labour’s offer is ambitious and radical; the Tory document is timid and thin. Jeremy Corbyn wants to spark a green industrial revolution to tackle the climate emergency and create a million environmentally friendly jobs; Boris Johnson is hoping to maintain the status quo on everything but Brexit. Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised by the difference in ambition and scope. The Labour manifesto is the product of a complex, months-long democratic process involving half a million grassroots members. The Tory manifesto comes from the pen of a fracking lobbyist.
While the Labour manifesto technically has one author – Corbyn’s head of policy Andrew Fisher – the document he produces is just one part of a lengthy collaborative process. Each shadow cabinet member, along with their team, has been developing policy according to their particular brief since being appointed. Keir Starmer, Labour’s Brexit spokesperson, is a key example. While forcing the government to release critical Brexit documents and providing essential scrutiny in parliament, the barrister is also widely credited with slowly but surely shifting the Labour position from an unambiguously pro-Brexit stance to one firmly in support of a fresh EU referendum. That push has required detailed policy work. Other frontbenchers, namely Jon Ashworth and Angela Rayner, have dug deep into their own lived experiences to bring out policy solutions close to their hearts, respectively: expanded addiction support services and Sure Start centres in every community. Continue reading...