So many people trying to make a reasoned case for a Labour vote on here, it's very surprising and somewhat out of step with the national mood as I see it, which I suspect will deliver nothing short of a thumping Tory victory.
Whatever misgivings people may have about another five years of Conservative rule, you look across at the Labour benches and you see a shadow cabinet entirely ill-equipped for government, more than any other in modern history.
Their manifesto is Alice in Wonderland stuff. It is based on undeliverable promises, fantasy economics and is, quite frankly, deceitful. The Tories will sell the NHS to Donald Trump! Oh fuck off. No they won't. How does that even work? It is playground politics pandering to the fears of the dim-witted. Can anyone recall an election where the Labour hasn't led with base NHS scare stories?
Their whole economic policy is illiterate. The nationalisation of industries that have no business being in the hands of the state, coupled with tax hikes that will result in revenues worked out of the back of a fag packet and which simply don't stand up to scrutiny.
The great deceit, at the very heart of the Labour message, is that we live in a society that is fundamentally unfair and that we have a tax system that is regressive, or at least is regressive in a comparative sense. This is patently untrue. We have one of the highest starting rate of tax thresholds in the developed world. By comparison (to choose just one example of many), somebody in the Netherlands earning 15,000 euros will pay 36% tax. Somebody earning up to 68,000 euros will pay 38% tax. Imagine the Tories proposing such a flat system. Lily Allen would convulse. Our minimum wage is amongst the highest in the the EU, we have a system of tax credits (which the Tories have maintained) which redistributes wealth in a progressive way not replicated in many countries.
Is it perfect? No, but let's dispense with this nonsense idea that the current government is ideologically predisposed to punish low earners and reward high earners. I believe the very wealthy could contribute more, but even then the top 1% still contribute more than a third of tax revenues. A lot of it is driven by ideology. When Boris, quite sensibly, announced that the earnings threshold for the top rate of tax be shifted up a bit (which it should, because the threshold was set many years ago, and many people have moved into this bracket in the intervening years), it was denounced as a tax cut for the rich, and was lapped up by the lemmings. It was nothing of the sort. The very wealthy would see hardly any difference, but those earning 50-70K would see a real difference, a bracket that includes teachers, senior nurses, tube drivers, and many hard working people in the South-East where the cost of living is insane.
We see it time and time again. Private schools - at least they have ditched the insane idea of scrapping them, but now plan to tax them, to 'generate revenues'. No it won't, it'll force many back into state schools, taking up places and resources they were already paying for but not using. Who benefits?
Scrap tuition fees? Why? Whether you borrow £100,000 or £500,000 for your studies, the amount you pay back is exactly the same for the vast majority (unless you go on to earn enormous amounts, in which case you can afford it anyway). Who benefits?
Corporation tax? Don't get me started on that. Removing loopholes and working with other countries to ensure multi-nationals pay their fair share, fine, but you only need to look at Ireland to see how low rates of corporation tax can work and can generate wealth for a nation. Do people not think that the record levels of overseas investment in the UK and our relatively low rates of business taxes are somehow linked? Again, economic illiteracy from Labour. A senior Labour MP recently sent out a tweet regarding Amazon in which she clearly had no idea of the difference between turnover and profit. Some want these people to run the country.
You can make a good case against the Tories in many areas. I am not particularly partisan. My politics are very centrist and moderate, but this Labour Party would be a disaster. They are a rabble. Corbyn himself, once dismissed as a crazy, albeit a principled one, is now exposed and a crazy with no principles whatsoever. Corbyn, a multi-millionaire with a net worth greater than Boris Johnson, who not once has contacted HMRC to request that he voluntarily pay more tax, something which he can do at any time he chooses. Just saying. Cue abuse.
