Labour policy: a running joke
Monday 29 October 2012
The money has been paid by the Electoral Commission from a fund designed to help parties draft manifestoes and explore policy ideas. Yet, having set up 19 review groups in order to present the party with a "blank sheet" on policy, Miliband has abandoned the process and only a handful of policy proposals have emerged.
Since the last election Labour has received two payments of £342,459 each and others of £155,773 and £114,000 – a total of £954,691 – as "policy development grants". Now the party is due to collect a further £100,000-plus under the little-known scheme before the end of the year, taking the running total to more than £1million for what is being called a "running joke in Westminster" – the most expensive blank sheet in history.
The biggest "joke" of all, though, is that most of the policy issues are EU competences, so Miliband would not have been able to implement them, should Labour actually take office.
But then, over term, the Tories have had just as much money under the "policy grant development system", which is costing us taxpayers £2m a year for the major political parties to play their empty games. The sooner we have the Harrogate Agenda in place, the better.
COMMENT THREAD
Richard North 29/10/2012
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