WHEN LABOUR WAS LABOUR......

My thanks to Labour Home for providing a link to the 1983 Election Manifesto. This has long been derided by the right as the "longest suicide note in history." Well , now we've all stopped being " intensely relaxed" about the filthy rich younger comrades may find it strangely relevant. Frankly, I still agree with every word.

Emergency programme of action
Within days of taking office, Labour will begin to implement an emergency programme of action, to bring about a complete change of direction for Britain. Our priority will be to create jobs and give a new urgency to the struggle for peace. In many cases we will be able to act immediately. In others, which involve legislation, they will take longer to bring into effect. But in all cases we shall act swiftly and with determination.
This is what we plan to do. We will:
Launch a massive programme for expansion.We will:
Provide a major increase in public investment, including transport, housing and energy conservation.
Begin a huge programme of construction, so that we can start to build our way out of the slump.
Halt the destruction of our social services and begin to rebuild them, by providing a substantial increase in resources.
Increase investment in industry, especially in new technology - with public enterprise taking the lead. And we will steer new industry and jobs to the regions and the inner cities.
Ensure that the pound is competitive; and hold back prices through action on VAT, rents, rates and fares.
Introduce a crash programme of employment and training, with new job subsidies and allowances.
Begin to rebuild British industry, working within a new framework for planning and industrial democracy. We will:
Agree a new national economic assessment, setting out the prospects for growth in the economy. Prepare a five-year national plan, in consultation with unions and employers. Back up these steps with a new National Investment Bank, new industrial powers, and a new Department for Economic and Industrial Planning.
Repeal Tory legislation on industrial relations and make provision for introducing industrial democracy.
Begin the return to public ownership of those public industries sold off by the Tories.
Start to create a fairer Britain, with decent social services for all. We will:
Raise child benefit, and give special help to one-parent families and families with disabled dependants.
Uprate the pension by the full amount needed to protect against inflation
Provide more resources for the health service with an increase of at least 3 per cent a year in real terms.
Improve the personal social services, such as meals on wheels and home helps, with an increase of at least 4 per cent a year in real terms.
Spend more on education, including on essential books and equipment; end the assisted places scheme; and stop selection in secondary schools.
Begin to develop comprehensive care for the under-fives.
Begin to develop a strategy to eliminate low pay.
Introduce positive action programmes to promote women's rights and opportunities, and appoint a cabinet minister to promote equality between the sexes. We will:
Strengthen the Equal Pay Act and the Sex Discrimination Act.
Improve child care and other social services.
Take steps to end discrimination in education and training.
Reverse Tory cuts in maternity rights.
Increase the maternity grant.
Encourage and assist local authorities to begin a massive programme of house-building and improvement, through an immediate 50 per cent increase in their housing investment programmes. Priority will go to the urgent repair and replacement of run-down estates. We will freeze all rents for the first full year.
Begin a major programme to stop the waste of energy. We will stop Sizewell and abandon the Tory PWR programme; and open urgent discussions, with the unions and management in the coal industry, on a new Plan for Coal.
Give more help to public transport, with funds to improve services, keep down fares, and increase investment - especially in rail electrification and better freight facilities. Councils will be given new powers to support local services.
Act to improve the environment and deal with pollution - including a ban on lead in petrol. An urgent start will be made on improving our inner cities, including action on derelict land and buildings.
Introduce a positive action programme for ethnic minorities. We will also introduce citizenship and immigration laws which do not discriminate against either women or black and Asian Britons.
Give a new priority to open government at local and national levels, and give local communities greater freedom to manage their own affairs. We will also introduce an early Bill to abolish the legislative powers of the House of Lords.
In international policy, we shall take new initiatives to promote peace and development. We will: Cancel the Trident programme, refuse to deploy Cruise missiles and begin discussions for the removal of nuclear bases from Britain, which is to be completed within the lifetime of the Labour government.
Ban arms sales to repressive regimes.
Increase aid to developing countries towards the UN target of 0.7 per cent.
Re-establish a separate Ministry of Overseas Development.
Take action to protect the status of refugees in Britain.