VOTE Labour, vote banker. If you vote for Labour in this election, you're not voting for your own interests, or those of ordinary working-class people, but for the interests of the financial sector in London. 

It's not just me or other critics on the left of the Labour Party who are saying this – it's Starmer's shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves.

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Speaking at a campaign event in London on Monday, attended by the heads of both the Lloyds Banking Group and Santander UK, Reeves proudly told the assembled bankers that their fingerprints are all over the Labour manifesto.

She said: "I really hope that when you do read [the manifesto], or if you read the section on the economy, that you will see your fingerprints all over it.

“Because the ideas that we've set out in that manifesto on how to grow the economy are based on so many of the conversations I've had with businesses and investors over the last three years."

Starmer's manifesto is not a Labour manifesto as these have been understood over the past 50 years, it's a far more right-wing offering.

According to analysis carried out by Kevin Farnsworth, a professor of social and public policy at the University of York, Starmer's manifesto is most similar to that of the Conservative leader Ted Heath in 1974.

Farnsworth analysed the language used in political manifestos and compared Starmer's manifesto with Corbyn’s in 2017 and 2019, Harold Wilson's in 1964 and Clement Attlee's Labour manifesto of 1945. What he found is that Starmer's manifesto is strikingly out of line with any previous Labour manifesto in its language and in the values it promotes.

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Starmer's manifesto mentions inequality just once. Poverty is mentioned just 14 times in its more than 130 pages, whereas business is mentioned 60 times. Starmer's manifesto is a Conservative manifesto.

Tackling inequality and poverty, which have grown exponentially in the UK in recent years, is not something Starmer has any great interest in. If it were, he'd have given them much more prominence in his manifesto.

Instead, he bangs on about growing the economy while refusing to raise taxes on the better off. Redistribution is a dirty word for Starmer. This is the same old discredited trickle-down economics which have failed so badly in the past.

The UK desperately needs change. Starmer constantly boasts about how he has changed the Labour Party. Unlike much else of what Starmer says, that boast is not actually a lie; he has indeed changed Labour into a 1970s iteration of the Conservative Party. He's changed it into a party which is unwilling and unable to deliver on that promise of change which is central to the Labour campaign.

Blair chimes in on independence

Talking of habitual liars in the Labour Party, in an unwelcome blast from the past, Tony Blair has decided to regale us with his opinions on the devolution settlement.

The former prime minister – whom many believe should be prosecuted as a war criminal for his role in taking the UK into war in Iraq on the basis of lies and misinformation – told Holyrood magazine that devolution had “worked” because it had by “design” stopped Scotland from leaving the UK.

Blair never wanted devolution in the first place, he had to be dragged into it. As Scottish Green MSP Maggie Chapman noted: "Devolution wasn't handed down by Tony Blair out of the goodness of his heart. It was hard won by decades of campaigning by people in communities across Scotland.

"For all that we have gained, there are also really big structural issues that urgently need to be addressed: the undemocratic Section 35 Order that allows our parliament to be overruled by a single person, the lack of real powers in so many key areas, such as the economy, energy and employment, and the fact that we have such limited powers over how it raises money and spends it."

Indeed, Blair's government heavily watered down the proposals for the powers of the new Scottish Parliament, which as originally envisaged would have had control of broadcasting and substantial powers over revenue raising in the form of tax powers and borrowing.

Blair boasted during the 1997 general election campaign that the Scottish Parliament would have similar powers as an English parish council and insisted that sovereignty would remain with him as prime minister.

With the repeated assaults that we have seen on the devolution settlement by the Conservative governments of May, Johnson and Sunak, we see all too clearly the shortcomings of devolution that were built into the settlement due to Blair's centralising British nationalist instincts.

SNP manifesto will be ‘more left-wing’ than other parties

The SNP manifesto is due to be launched on Wednesday but speaking in the Western Isles today First Minister John Swinney signalled that the SNP's manifesto will be considerably more left-wing than anything else on offer from one of the major parties.

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The party will call for a “social tariff” which would cut energy, broadband and mobile bills for disabled people, the elderly and those on low incomes. The new tariff would be funded through general taxation and a windfall tax on the profits of oil and gas companies.

Speaking at a campaign event in Stornoway, Swinney said: "We believe that there are certain things that every citizen should have access to as a right. Healthcare free at the point of need, a social security safety net, pensions for older people, and free education including free university tuition.

"But it is time that we recognised that these rights need to go further, to reflect the realities of the modern world.

“Energy is the perfect example. The whole country has been hammered by high fuel bills. And in the Western Isles, we have the worst fuel poverty levels in Scotland.

“The UK Government has the powers over fuel bills and we need to see real action – so our manifesto will confirm the SNP’s plans to extend the safety net to fuel.”