The Labour Manifesto 1924-2024
Labour has published its Manifesto for the 2024 Election
As Guardian journalist Nesrine Malik noted on X it reads like a pitch for a management consultancy. UK plc has been badly run, Labour will do better. We have of course been here before. Ted Heath’s 1970-74 Government was satirised in Private Eye as HeathCo because that’s how he saw running the country. He was of course a Tory.
Below are some extracts from the Labour Manifesto for the December 1923 Election which led to the first ever Labour Government in January 1924. A lot of the Manifesto is of its time but some of the general principles still read well. Better than the 2024 Manifesto in fact..
The aged, the widows, the children
Labour Policy is directed to the creation of a humane and civilised society. When Labour rules it will take care that little children shall not needlessly die; it will give to every child equality of opportunity in Education; it will make generous provision for the aged people, the widowed mothers, the sick and disabled citizens.
It will abolish the slums, promptly build an adequate suppy of decent homes and resist decontrol till the shortage is satisfied. It will place the Drink Traffic under popular control.
Equal rights
Labour stands for equality between men and women: equal political and legal rights, equal rights and privileges in parenthood, equal pay for equal work.
Labour’s practical idealism
The Labour Party submits to the men and women of the country its full programme. It urges them to refuse to make this General Election a wretched partisan squablle about mean and huckstering policies. It appeals to all citizens to take a generous and courageous stand for right and justice, to believe in the possibility of building up a sane and ordered society, to oppose the squalid materialism that dominates the world today, and to hold out their hands in friendship and good-will to the struggling people everywhere who want only freedom, security and a happier life.
Let’s be hopeful not cynical eh?!