Guardian journalist Aditya Chakrabortty has asked Prof Kevin Farnsworth to analyse Labour’s Election Manifesto and put it in the context of Labour Manifestos since 1945
The conclusion is that its an outlier with lots of mentions of business and only one of inequality. Farnsworth argues that the closest comparison is Ted Heath’s 1970 Tory Manifesto.
Those of a certain age (ahem myself) will spot an agenda. Heath’s Government was satirised in Private Eye as HeathCo. Heath ran Britain as a Managing Director. He micro managed and was perpetually frustrated by the staff (voters) doing things they shouldnt. It does sound very much like the way Starmer has run Labour.
Heath of course with his Industrial Relations Act saw that being pro-business meant being anti-union.s Starmer says he is pro-union, or at least pro-worker (a New Labour term)which is not the same thing. One wonders if that circle will be squared or if Starmer will frustrate the aspirations of the TUC for a New Deal in his bid to appease business?
Edward Heath: Heathco Newsletter(source Wiki)
Heathco Newsletter purported to be an internal missive from Edward Heath, the managing director of a struggling small firm called Heathco, in which Heath keeps his staff up to date and in high spirits with the latest company news. Cabinet ministers were recast as petty managers and clerks in this satire. The company’s logo was a stylised yacht (Heath’s hobby was yachting). The newsletters invariably ended with a request to staff which admonished them for stubbing their cigarettes out in the plastic cups in which the canteen served them with tea. Frequent reference was made to the malfunctioning of the Automatic Plastic Beaker Disposal Unit, or APBDU.
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