UKIP Manifesto 2015

Suzanne Evans launched UKIP's 2015 manifesto today with a surprise gift from the president of the EU Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, whose office confirmed that there will be no renegotiation of EU treaties until 2019 at the earliest, putting paid once and for all to David Cameron's promises of a renegotiation by 2017.

UKIP's manifesto has been incredibly received, not least because it is the first time a party has had their manifesto independently assessed for economic sense rather than marking their own homework. UKIP's manifesto has been inspected by the Centre for Economics & Business Research, an organisation that provides independent economic forecasts to business and government.

There were some unexpected policies in the manifesto such as an intermediate 30% tax rate for earnings between £45,300 to £55,000, stopping companies from offshoring their profits to avoid paying tax, no means testing of free TV licences or winter fuel payments for pensioners and abolishing the Department for Culture, Media & Sport.

I started to pull out the best bits (in my opinion) from the manifesto but Suzanne did such a great job, the best bits turned out to be most of it so rather than reinventing the wheel, you can either read the summary on the UKIP website or download the full manifesto.

Join the government of Britain?

The Conservatives have launched their manifesto for the general election with an "invitation to join the government of Britain".

The manifesto contains lots of promises from "Cast Iron" Dave, many of which are watered-down version of UKIP policy and most of which relate to England only (I'll discuss that somewhere else later).

Dave promises to:

• Reverse Labour's increase in National Insurance for anyone earning under £35k
  UKIP will abolish it
• Freeze council tax
  In England, it's already frozen in Wales and Scotland
• Re-introduce tax benefits for married couples
  £150 per year? That's a few weeks of our personal contribution to the EU budget.
• Increase the retirement age early
  UKIP will use money propping up EU pensions to pay our own pensions
• Reduce cost of the civil service by cutting quangos
  Many of which were invented by the EU
• Freeze public sector spending on IT
  Which saves the taxpayer money
• Freeze public sector recruitment
  More work, less money and less people means worse service
• Pay companies to employ apprentices
  UKIP will abolish NI and make this unnecessary
• Put the Bank of England back in charge of banks
  Under an EU regulator
• Cut corporation tax
  A UKIP policy
• Allow parents to run schools
  In England only. UKIP will reintroduce grammar schools so bright children get an education that will make the most of their potential.
• Let patients choose which hospital they want to be treated at
  In England only. UKIP will allow people to opt out of the NHS if they want to.
• Ban off-licences and shops from selling cheap alcohol as loss leaders
  Labour killed the pub, the Tories want to kill the rest of the alcohol industry
• Limit non-EU immigration
  UKIP will limit all immigration
• Reduce the number of MPs by 10%
  England only. UKIP will abolish regional quangos which cost much more than 65 MPs. We will need all our MPs when the EU isn't making 75% of our laws.
• Stop government paying lobbyists to lobby government
  A sensible idea (there are one or two!)
• Any public sector spending over £25k to go on a website
  How much will it cost to administer and who will actually look at it other than journalists?
• Stop tax credits for anyone earning over £50k
  UKIP will take low paid workers out of income tax completely, reducing the need for tax credits
• New tax on financial services for "social responsibility"
  UKIP will make it easier and cheaper to do business, not harder and more expensive
• Ban companies from repossessing houses to pay debts under £25k
  This will encourage defaulting on debts and damage businesses who lend money
• National voluntary service for teenagers
  England only. There will be less unemployed youngsters when business is thriving.

Dave's promises are worthless as we've already seen with his promises on the West Lothian Question and the Lisbon Treaty.  For once I'm glad that he does break his promises, there's very little in the Conservative manifesto that will benefit the economy or society.