The Labour manifesto looks like it's been pulled from a time capsule, it's an utter joke.
Anyone would think they were trying to take control of the utilities so that the Unions could take a stronger grip over the country.
Who ever takes over from Corbyn, assuming that he will step down or, be ousted from being Leader, needs some new ideas.
Clamping down properly on tax evasion and tax avoidance would be a good start.

It's a crying shame that Team Teresa is going to have a huge majority but, nobody is even coming close to making her campaign difficult.

Clamping down on tax avoidance/evasion is in the manifesto.

I don't think it's an utter joke. A lot of what is in there makes sense. Take the nationalisation of the rail network.

It's a hugely expensive and inefficient set up at the moment. Many train operating companies are fleecing the government and in many cases are foreign owned state companies anyway.

NE Mainline was much better when it was state run (briefly) recently.

And what were they fighting for to save ticket inspectors (guards) jobs. The future isn't guard less trains but driverless trains which is what you see on the Paris underground, Gatwick airport, DLR etc etc

Barriers at stations can check tickets.

I interpret is differently - only wants to renationalise the power grid and have 1 publicly owned energy company available in each area. Look at the profits generated by Centrica and Npower etc - I'd love UK taxpayer to get a slice of that market - plough the profits back into developing renewables and take that cost off the end user perhaps?

Can also possibly use the publicly owned companies to keep prices down if required. The danger is the big 6 could collude to undercut the public company to reduce its market share. Not sure how that would pan out though

Energy privatisation is a mess and customers are paying much more, fuel poverty is rife.

Only thing I can see about Unions is ensuring they have access to all workplaces?

As a younger member of society can anyone explain to me why the Labour party and the unions are so closely linked? I thought that a trade union would be separate from any specific political party, instead focusing on holding whatever government is in power to account on the issue of worker's rights.

Having spent a bit of time in the Netherlands I've seen how well a nationalised rail service can operate but the unions in this country appear, for lack of a better word, quite militant and I don't think the current Labour leaders would be willing to stand against the unions if they were to make any outrageous demands.

manifestos...whats the point?

the parties just tell us what we want to hear and they end up not getting implemented anyway!

they should be made to comply with their manifesto by law if elected.

In a nutshell - back in the early - mid 1800's Britain had undergone the industrial revolution and most people moved from agricultural work to working in Mills, mines, factories etc. They were paid very little (as in barely enough to live on) worked 12 - 16 hour days, in filthy condition, were often injured or killed by the machinery or environment they worked in and lived in disgusting slums. Diseases were common and infant mortality rates were through the roof. Your kids also worked in these industries to make ends meet.

Then in the late 1800's workers unions were legalised and the trade union movement started in order to try and address some of these issues that workers were facing. This resulted in the formation of the Labour Representation Commitee which became the basis of todays Labour party.

Since then, trade unions collect membership fees from their members and pass a decent proportion on to the Labour Party who theoretically stand up for workers rights and welfare in parliament.

As for your point about them being militant, well to be fair, yes they have been very militant in the past, which ultimately led to them being hammered by Thatcher and their powers reduced. These days, owners are always looking to streamline their costs and obviously, the biggest expense of most businesses is wages. The trade unions have to be quite agressive in the face of aggressive cuts from employers, quite a few of whom try to not recognise the authority of unions to negotiate on behalf of their staff members.

Just asking a question here.
IF the railways were nationalised, what do you think are the chances of having national strikes, something we haven't seen for many years.
Also, British Rail were awful, late running trains, lousy second rate carriages and even worse food.
Although there are problems with rail services not necessarily will nationalising them, solve anything.

Network rail are still tidying up the mess from a network that has been under maintained!

People talk as if Labour's policies are from another planet when really they're common place throughout the world. It seems the only thing that constitutes a strong economy to the quasi Rand zombies running the country is misleading GDP growth, and 'low unemployment'. Things like, living standards, education, health, productivity, and wages are an after thought.

According to the Governor of the bank of England, our strong and stable economy is going to be squeezed over the next 12 months.
Higher inflation plus interest rate increases are going to leave us all a little worse off and then the unknown effects of Brexit will come into play and hi didn't want to commit himself as to which way things would go.

Thanks for that, every article I found on Google were written on the assumption that I had a a fair bit of understanding on the topic so this has helped a lot. I recognise that the unions do play an important role in ensuring that the workers can band together to fight any business looking to exploit them but I do feel a little uncomfortable with them being so intrinsically linked to one party. It just seems so easy for them to become a political weapon. Is this what happened Pre-Thatcher? Are all the unions focused on workers in the public sector or are the unions that represent workers in the private sector as well?

I apologise for all the questions but they're not really a topic that gets discussed by younger people so I'm quite ignorant on them and as an undecided voter I want to know the ins and outs of all the major parties before the election.

Hang on, how did you go from the early/mid 1800s to describing the life of a current Deliveroo rider in the same paragraph?!

If this manifesto was being delivered by a clean-cut, slick-talking, confident leader you would be praising it, as would everyone else and it would be a huge landslide victory for Labour. This election is a joke and, like the last US election, is concrete proof that winning an election is nothing to do with politics whatsoever, it's solely about creating and manipulating a certain rhetoric about your opponent.

So why are a significant number of labour MP's not backing Jezza and haven't done since day one, long before his inadequacies became apparent to the public.

No economic plan, spend without concerns for the consequence
De militarising the UK
Stronger influence by unions...........

Non of the above are promoted by leading countries

Im not sure he helps himself by openly admitting to being a marxist, standing under a communist and pro Assad flags when speaking to an audience, wearing a black cap.....hardly the traits of a future states person on the world stage. Im not sure McDonald and Abbott help.

Stop looking for excuses the bloke just isn't a leader, he's a protester. Its university politics.

Morally he sounds OK talking about looking after the needy etc but he just doesn't have the skills or plan to deliver on that nor the right people around him