Thursday 18 May 2017

Manifest Destiny?

Is there anything about grammar schools in the Conservative manifesto?

If there is, then no one has bothered to report it. And they really would have done. Had it been there.

Anyway, the Triple Lock on pensions would go, as would most older people's Winter Fuel Allowance, and the cost of their social care would be charged to their estates once they had died.

At the other end of life, free school meals for infants would be scrapped.

As for the rest, there is not even a pledge not to increase income tax and National Insurance; long gone are the days when Conservative manifestos promised to cut them.

Indeed, this document explicitly holds up both taxation, and the government regulation of the private sector, as positive goods in themselves.

The deficit would remain for so long that it might as well just say "forever" and be done with it. The same old immigration target is repeated, presumably as a joke.

Almost everything else is pure Jeremy Corbyn. At least the real Corbyn, not the caricature.

You can imagine him saying it. If you have to, because he has already been saying a lot of it for many years.

And you can imagine the totally different media reaction if he did.

But he has changed the weather of British politics. He has redefined the entire terms of the debate.

Labour could not have issued this manifesto before him (nor, where the attacks on pensioners and on hungry children were concerned, would it want to do so now).

Yet today, this manifesto has been issued by the Conservatives.

10 comments:

  1. "Remove the ban on grammars and review admissions policies." So no. As you rightly say, grammar schools would be huge news if they were there, but they're not, so they're not.

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    1. There was no ban on grammar schools for most of the period during which no one ever tried to set one up. There is never going to be a Commons majority for actually bringing them back. Never. That is just political reality. Even lifting the ban, if she ever tried to do so much as that, would need all sorts of conditions in order to be enacted by her own party. Sufficient conditions, of course, to ensure that no new grammar school was ever opened.

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  2. It's impressive stuff, including the end of freedom of movement, the repeal the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and a a pledge to leave the Single Market and customs union and the reach of EU courts.

    The Telegraph (Tory Manifesto: at a glance) reports:

    ""Education:
    "A ban on new selective grammar schools will be lifted with provision put in place to ensure pupils can join at other ages as well as 11.

    Immigration:

    "For the first time in decades”, control immigration from the European Union with new immigration policy

    Reduce annual net migration to a “sustainable” level in the tens of thousands, rather than the hundreds of thousands.

    Toughen up requirements for student visas, include students in immigration quotas and expect them to leave the country when studies are finished

    Double the Immigration Skills Charge on companies employing migrant workers

    Fishing

    A pledge to work with the UK fisheries industry to develop a new regime for commercial fishing post-Brexit to replace the Common Fisheries Policy.

    A promise to withdraw from the London Fisheries Convention.

    Defence

    A pledge to increase the budget by at least 0.5 per cent above inflation in every year of the new parliament."

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05/18/conservative-manifesto-general-election-2017-key-points-policies/

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    1. Heard it all before.

      What we haven't heard before, however, is that the Triple Lock on pensions would go, as would most older people's Winter Fuel Allowance, while the cost of their social care would be charged to their estates once they had died, and free school meals for infants would be scrapped.

      Today, everyone heard all of that. Loud and clear.

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    2. This is the third outing for that immigration target, it has already been missed for seven years running, six of them while Theresa May was Home Secretary.

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    3. Precisely so. That is why no one is listening. But they are listening to the commitment that the Triple Lock on pensions would go, as would most older people's Winter Fuel Allowance, while the cost of their social care would be charged to their estates once they had died, and free school meals for infants would be scrapped.

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  3. This warms my heart.

    The BBC, (which has been running a middle-class leftwing campaign against grammars ever since Theresa May pledged to bring them back) must be incandescent with rage at this:

    "As well as the commitment on funding, the Conservative manifesto reiterates plans to create a new generation of grammar schools.""

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-39959961

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    1. John Major said that 25 years ago. It'll never happen.

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  4. John Major didn't say it in his manifesto. Theresa May did. It will happen.

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    1. We all know what happens when Theresa May promises things in her manifesto.

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