The Difference Between British And American

Obviously, there are significant differences between US and UK elections- theirs is a parliamentarian system, their campaign only lasted six weeks, the geography makes campaigning across their country far easier and necessary, and a host of other factors.

But one thing that stands out is that, over there, the public and even the press actually takes the parties’ platforms, or manifestos as they are called, seriously. It could be argued, in fact, that the Conservative and Labour party manifestos were actually the determining factor in yesterday’s election.

The Labour manifesto attracted younger voters and previously disaffected traditionally Labour voters with its anti-austerity focus including pledges for abolition of tuition fees, spending nearly 8 billion pounds to improve the NHS, maintain free school lunches, and free childcare at a cost of nearly 6 billion pounds. All these were largely paid for with increased taxes on the top 5% of earners as well as increased business taxes. It was a progressive or, God forbid we use the word in America, socialist platform.

The Conservative manifesto, on the other hand, was not as well received. It abandoned the free school lunches and proposed cheaper breakfasts instead as a cost-saving measure. It reiterated a pre-existing plan to cut corporate taxes. It proposed to cut immigration by around 200,000 and increase defense spending by 0.5% more than inflation on an annual basis. It proposed to repeal the ban on fox hunting. Like Labour, the Tories also pledged to increase spending on the NHS by about 8 billion pounds.

But by far the most important item in the Conservative manifesto was the proposal to provide “free” social care for all those making less than 100,000 pounds, raising that limit from around 25,000. The catch was that the value of a person’s home was to be included in the means test, meaning that millions of poorer homeowners would end up paying more for their social services. In addition, the government could recoup the cost of that care by selling the patient’s home after death.

This became the so-called “dementia tax” and it was claimed that millions of children would end up paying more to take care of their parent or parents suffering from dementia and then lose the house they were living in upon the parent’s death.

May and the Conservatives immediately tried to backtrack as it became clear that the “dementia tax’ was becoming a potent issue against them but the adjustments they offered potentially made it worse. In addition, it looked like May was panicking and flip-flopping, in contrast to the continued harping on her “strong leadership”, and it showed that she and the Conservatives didn’t really know what they were doing.

Now, May was a pretty poor candidate and was unexpectedly outclassed by Corbyn as a campaigner. But it is also clear that the manifestos of each party, especially the Conservative’s dementia tax, was the turning point in this campaign.

Wouldn’t it have been nice if the media and the public had paid a little more attention to the actual policy intentions of the Democrats and Republicans last year, rather than focusing on emails, slogans instead of substance, personalities, and more emails?