We must do our best to ensure that the party’s manifesto for the election contains the policies which will best enable us to reconnect with our core voters without whom we will not win. Party and trade union members have not been involved in a proper review of the party’s policies since the start of the biggest economic crisis in almost a century. However, Ed Miliband, as co-ordinator of Labour’s next manifesto, has invited the comments from CLPs and individual party members.
Below are listed 50 ideas you may well support but, whatever your views, please send them to Ed Miliband at ed_miliband@new.labour.org.uk – you can cut and paste the ones you like and add other ideas of your own.
Please don’t delay – do it now. It will not take long.
SUGGESTED PROMISES FOR THE MANIFESTO
PROSPERITY AND WORK
1. Tackle the recession not with cuts in public spending but with massive investment in house-building, infrastructure and the de-carbonisation of the economy
2. Turn bailed-out banks into smaller, regionally-based public or mutualised banks with clear objectives for their communities and for the regeneration of manufacturing
3. Ban retail banks from “casino” investment banking
4. Keep Britain out of the Euro – the credit crunch has exposed the lie of “convergence” and Gordon Brown was right to keep Britain out
5. Make a clean break with market fundamentalism – no more deregulation and privatisation. We will deliver excellent public services in the public sector.
6. Keep Royal Mail wholly in the public sector
7. Commit to making Britain much more equal through sizeable increases in pensions, the minimum wage and the lowest benefit levels, redistributive taxation and by funding job creation and improved public services
8. Introduce more tax bands – 10% for the poorest taxpayers and 60% for the richest
9. Capital Gains Tax will be paid at the same marginal rate as income tax
10. Enact a ‘general anti-avoidance principle’ to taxation that treats all tax avoidance as unacceptable and therefore open to challenge
11. Require multi-national companies to account by country and disclose tax payments in each, and work to eradicate all tax havens
12. Apply a 10% income tax surcharge to all investment income (on which no national insurance is paid)
13. Restore trade union rights – unions must be able to defend their members interests through lawful industrial action without threat of victimisation
BRITAIN IN THE WORLD
14. Increase overseas aid commitment to 1% of Gross National Income
15. Press for the Global introduction of a financial transactions tax (Tobin) tax to finance the elimination of world poverty and counter climate change
16. Commit to using all available means to bring an end to the blockade of Gaza
17. Ban the import of goods produced in illegal settlements in occupied Palestinian territory
18. Commit to a withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan
19. Support governments in Latin America, such as those in Venezuela, Argentina, Brazil and Bolivia, that are committed to a more equitable distribution of wealth and power
20. Oppose the illegal regime established following the coup in Honduras, and the appalling abuse of human rights in Colombia
21. Oppose the continuing US blockade of Cuba
22. Abandon the replacement of Trident
CRIME, JUSTICE, CITIZENSHIP & EQUALITIES
23. Hold an independent inquiry into complicity with the use of torture by the secret services
24. Abandon the implementation of ID Cards
25. Reaffirm our commitment to refugees – always to offer succour to those in genuine fear of persecution
26. Reaffirm our commitment to the Human Rights Act we introduced
27. Create a national network of law centres
28. Ensure community based sentencing wherever possible, especially for women and people with mental health problems
29. Compulsory equal pay audits
30. Reduce the voting age to 16
31. Create a wholly elected House of Lords
CREATING SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES
32. Require industry (including airlines) to reduce climate change emissions by 3% per year through domestic action not by carbon offsetting abroad
33. Commit to decentralised power generation including wind turbines, solar panels, combined heat and power and biomass
34. Return to public ownership train operation by National Rail and London Underground by the end of their current franchises, and stop the privatisation of Tyne & Wear Metro
35. Extend the free transport for pensioners we introduced to local rail services
36. Introduce more council tax bands to make it fairer
37. Build 150,000 affordable houses or flats for rent each year
38. End housing stock transfer
39. Stop discounted council house sales under right to buy
40. Give tenants real power over their estates
HEALTH AND EDUCATION
41. End PFI in health and education
42. Abolish charges for dental and optometric examination
43. Introduce free personal care for the elderly
44. Extend patient choice to mental health patients
45. Make PCTs accountable to local communities
46. Introduce free school meals for all primary school children
47. End selection at 11 in all its forms. Consider converting good selective schools to 6th Form colleges
48. Require all faith schools to admit up to one-third of their pupils from their local area without regard to their faith
49. Ensure that at least one-third of all school governing bodies are elected by parents
50. Scrap university tuition fees