The Institute of Economic Affairs have released a report into how party manifestos are riddled with red tape. Unsurprisingly, Labour’s manifesto reads like a bureaucrat’s dream, crammed with 62 new regulatory proposals. The measure range from permanent fracking bans to rigorous equal pay duties and draconian energy efficiency standards for rentals. The Party only make 13 suggestions to cut red tape…
The Labour manifesto of burdens ultimately lands on the taxpayer to foot the bill. Labour has proposed just five tax-raising measures to rake in an additional £8.6 billion, though the business costs related to their regulatory changes will likely be much higher. Matthew Lesh of the IEA said:
“The major parties are proposing a tsunami of new regulations that could significantly increase costs for businesses and consumers…It’s concerning that parties claim to have ‘fully costed’ manifestos while ignoring the substantial costs of their regulatory proposals.”
Meanwhile the report finds the Tories have 28 policies to increase regulation and Reform have 14. With Starmer set to grab the keys to Downing Street next week, this may be just the start of a heavy-handed regulatory Labour government…
Starmer spoke to Nick Robinson for the Today Programme on Polanski’s criticism of the Golders Green police officers:
“I want everybody just to imagine what it might be like. You’re trying to arrest someone who has already attacked two people and has no regard for life. We know that tasers were fired. I know from my own experience with the police, that there are only two shots in a taser, and once you’ve shot them, there’s nothing left. There’s a guy on the ground, he’s got a rucksack on. And I don’t know what was going through the mind of those officers, but if I was there, I’d be thinking, he’s going to detonate something. He’s going to blow me up and everybody around here. In those circumstances, I think you can quite see why what could have gone through their mind is, we need to do whatever we can to disable this guy…
Now, when I then see Zack Polanski come out and retweet or support a criticism of that, I think it’s disgraceful… He’s not fit to lead any political party.”