Manifestos Unwrapped 5. The Labour Party: Our Next Government Needs Pressured to Fix The NHS
Call To Action
During an election campaign, a lot of the media coverage is swallowed up discussing gaffes, pitfalls, personality politics, or the jibes that individual politicians make towards one another as they try to build their own political appeal and diminish that of their opponents. This can be compelling, even entertaining, but if we want to gain an understanding about the political candidates and what they stand for, then we need to pay close attention to their manifestos.
So far, I have looked at the Conservative Party manifesto for the NHS, the Liberal Democrats, the Green Party and Reform, pulling out the most important points, providing critique on whether they’re focusing on the right priorities, and discussing whether these plans are achievable at all. Now I’m turning my attention to the Labour Party. Given they’re likely to form our next government, their manifesto for the NHS is arguably the most important of all.
There was a huge amount of speculation at the beginning of this election campaign season about whether the Conservatives would close the enormous lead that Labour has in the polls, but as the Guardian described a few days ago, Starmer is still holding strong:
“The Tories’ disastrous election campaign has propelled Labour to a near-record poll lead with just 11 days to go until election day. The latest Opinium poll for the Observer puts Labour on 40% (unchanged compared with a week ago), with the Tories languishing on just 20% (down three on the week). The 20-point figure equals the highest Labour lead under Keir Starmer other than during the catastrophic and short-lived premiership of Liz Truss.”
This gives the impression of solid support for Labour, but a recent survey from Ipsos shows that there has actually been a lot of movement, with a large number of people changing their voting intentions over the past few months.
“... a new Ipsos survey on the Ipsos online random probability UK KnowledgePanel reveals a notable degree of voter volatility. The survey, which tracked the voting intentions of the same group of over 15,000 British adults between January and June, found that while the overall percentage of the population who planned to vote for most parties remained relatively stable, underneath the surface 30% of the total voting age population had changed their vote intentions in some way by June.”
Labour is losing voters to the Green Party, but picking up others who had previously planned to vote Conservative, and overall, projections still point to a hefty 20 point lead. If you’re interested in keeping an eye on the state of the polls as the election draws closer, this poll tracker from Labour List combines the results and is updated regularly.
The way things currently stand, Starmer will be our next Prime Minister, and it looks like he’ll also command a huge majority. That matters, because it means he’d be able to turn many of his manifesto plans into reality. It also matters because we are facing a polycrisis of epic proportions within our society; we need action to tackle the climate emergency, to fund schools properly, and to tackle the state of emergency in the NHS. If Starmer does become Prime Minister, he has his work cut out.
Many people were horrified earlier this week to see the reality of the situation during a Channel 4 “Dispatches” programme. An undercover reporter worked in the A& E department at Royal Shrewsbury Hospital for 3 months and filmed what was going on. He saw patients suffer the effects of an NHS which has been underfunded for many years. Channel 4 also conducted some research, which showed that:
“Almost 19,000 NHS patients were left waiting in A&E for three days over a 12-month period, an investigation has revealed. Between April 2023 and March 2024, nearly 400,000 people were left waiting more than 24 hours across A&E departments, a 5% rise on the previous year. Channel 4’s Dispatches programme also found that 54,000 people had to wait more than two days, a freedom of information request to NHS England found.”
But while the documentary was illuminating, many didn’t need a television programme to show them how bad things have become in our public healthcare system. After all, millions are on NHS waiting lists at present, unable to access the treatment they need and which they pay for through their taxes. If Starmer wins the majority that is currently being forecast, all eyes will be on his next moves, and I suspect many people will be watching him with caution. After all, he pledged to remove NHS outsourcing during his bid for the leadership of the Labour Party, and then dropped this pledge in the Summer of 2022. His shadow health secretary Wes Streeting has caused repeated controversies and widespread anger when he has attacked trade unions and “middle class lefties” who oppose NHS privatisation. Both Starmer and Streeting have also ignited significant concern because of donations they received from those associated with the private healthcare sector.
The Labour party has traditionally been known as the “party of the NHS”, but many people are struggling to align Streeting and Starmer’s attitudes with the expectations they usually have of Labour. We will need to watch their behaviour and plans very closely, and keep them accountable for the decisions they make. And so this is why it’s important to scrutinise their plan for the NHS, so let’s get started! I’ll pull out some of the key points to discuss their merits, their drawbacks, and whether the plans are practical in financial terms…
The first thing you notice when opening the Labour Party’s manifesto is that they really want you to think that they represent change. At the top of the document Keir Starmer is pictured, just as he is in many social media posts and recent interviews, next to placards emblazoned with the word “change”. When you read on, to the content of the manifesto itself, it feels like someone opened up a thesaurus to find other words which also mean “change”, and they absolutely went to town. Here are two sentences from the opening section:
“A moment where we can turn the page on a set of ideas that, over 14 years, have consistently left us more vulnerable in an increasingly volatile world. And an opportunity to begin the work of national renewal. A rebuilding of our country, so that it once again serves the interests of working people.”
So that’s the first key point - Keir Starmer wants to impress upon you that he is the change candidate, and that he will bring about an end to the chaos of the Conservative government. The second key point is that The Labour Party manifesto is jarring and dissonant - Keir Starmer’s vision and his plans simply don’t stack up.
The style of writing within this manifesto makes it very difficult to grasp onto any policy points, because the whole document is written in sweeping statements and bold proclamations. This is then compounded by the structure of the document; it comprises “6 first steps for change” and then “five missions to rebuild Britain” before explaining the policies in different sections. Reading this through, one gets the impression that one team was in charge of the “steps” and another the “missions”, and the Party couldn’t decide which to stick with, so threw both of them in. It’s difficult to see where Starmer’s priorities really lie.