Sunday 21 May 2017

The "Manifestos don't actually help much, do they?" election - day 34


A lot of Sunday morning headlines told of Labour pushing for older voters, after the #DementiaTax triple whammy, and especially older Libertines fans it would appear.





Jeremy Corbyn gave an interview to Sophie Ridge on Sky in which she asked about his plans for ending the benefit freeze.  He replied "On work related benefits... we have set aside a large sum of money to deal with the anomalies that exist in the system... we’re dealing with the issue of the capability for work tests... and we will also raise the living wage to £10 an hour".

Quite reasonably, she pointed out that he hadn't quite said the freeze would be lifted, and after a bit of to-and-fro he said  "Yes, the freeze would be ended because it’s very, very unfair...". But the main point seemed to be "We’ve set aside the sum we’ve mentioned, that is set aside as a start and we’ll obviously review it as time goes on".

Which reminds me of nothing more than David Gauke, elsewhere in the media forest, explaining that his manifesto explained the approach a #MrsME government would take, the details of which would be developed and/or consulted on later.  I'd prefer a "We'll raise A and B, stop doing C and set work in motion to tackle D and E which are a bit more complex" but this is only an election after all.

Ridge pursued the old IRA theme and elicited an "all bombing has to be condemned and you have to bring about a peace process".  Of course "all bombing" includes "IRA bombing" but he does have a habit of answering the general, nothing-must-be-left-out question five times when he'd gain time for talking about the things he really wants to look at by tackling the specific question once.

Reviews of the interview later lamented that Corbyn hadn't explicitly said that immigration would fall after a Labour Brexit, only wishing for "fair immigration based on the needs of our society".  Neither have the Tories actually, though they have more aspirations and verbiage in that direction.  They might say "we will have the control" and "it should fall" but I don't think I've heard an "it will fall" coupled with a credible mechanism to make it happen.

We've got 17 more days of this fencing to go



That tousled liar Boris Johnson graced the Peston show with his considerable presence and said... not a lot really.  He claimed that Jeremy Corbyn is pushing for unlimited immigration, at pretty much the same moment that Corbyn was telling Sophie Ridge on Sky that "freedom of movement ends when we leave the EU".

He also claimed that the "minimum of £8 billion in real terms over the next five years" pledged for the NHS in the Tory manifesto is the £350 million per week promised by his Brexiter bus.  Except that it isn't.  That would total over £18 billion per year (and of course a quarter of it is the rebate so we already spend it the way we want, and a third is spent on things we won't want to drop entirely, yada yada you've heard it all before).

Oh, and Damian Green told us via the Marr programme that some of the £8bn would actually be reallocated from within current NHS funding.  How do these people expect to get away with it?  Green also opined that May would prefer to keep Johnson inside the tent.  I think we can all guess why, but how long can he last?



David Davis popped up talking about walking out of the Brexit negotiations without a deal.  Had something happened to make that worth contemplating?  Well, the process we triggered just under a year ago is still going on, with final negotiating instructions about to be sign off by the EU council of 27 and handed to Michel Barnier.  And rumours suggest that #MrsME & co won't like some of them.  Or maybe it was just intended to distract us all from the #DementiaTax problem.

Davis's cryptic closer (in this article at least) was  “I’m of the view that the likeliest outcome is the outcome we are looking for,” which could mean anything.  Talking about "no deal" was seen as foolish...





or as part of a conspiracy/plan (delete according to taste)...










Under Article 50 there's no way to just drop out.  Without an agreement, EU treaties "cease to apply to the State in question from the date of entry into force of the withdrawal agreement or, failing that, two years after the notification".  There are those, in UKIP and the UDI wing of the Conservative party, who say we should just repeal our own European Communities Act and leave the 27 to pick up the pieces, but I don't think Davis and #MrsME are quite that stupid. After all, Davis ran through some of the implications of leaving with no deal earlier this year.







The social care scare definitely isn't going away.  Here's the IFS on Friday saying that the plan doesn't tackle the basic funding challenge.  Here, in more down to earth terms is the word on the street.





And here is a discussion of whether we're talking about care or inheritance.




And the Lib Dem's Tim Farron told us the Tories have chosen a #DementiaTax.  "If you or your loved one has, or will get dementia, they're coming for you."

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