Labour manifesto 2015 - the key points

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/apr/13/labour-election-manifesto-key-points

Version 0 of 1.

The Labour leader, Ed Miliband, has launched his party’s manifesto at the Old Granada Studios in Manchester. It is called Britain Can Be Better and following are the key points:

The economy

Rowena Mason: These three pledges underpin Labour’s attempt to portray itself as the party of fiscal responsibility. But Ed Miliband was questioned about the lack of a clear timetable for these targets. He is not saying when the deficit will be cleared and is only promising to balance the books on the current budget. Responding to critics, he hit back by saying the unfunded promises being made by the Conservatives “make the Green party look fiscally responsible”.

RM: This is the only new policy affecting business. It is a revision of the promise to reach £8 by May 2020, previously allowing the Conservatives to claim they would have reached this level more quickly on their current trajectory.

Related: Election 2015 live: Ed Miliband launches Labour manifesto in Manchester

RM: The Conservatives annoyed Labour by pre-empting this with their own promise of a rail fare freeze, which Miliband called “unfunded, uncosted and ... totally unbelievable”.

RM: A new promise to protect tax credits is a big deal given that they are being phased out with the introduction of Universal Credit and recepients would almost certainly lose out under the Conservatives’ plans for £12bn of further working-age welfare cuts.

Health and education

RM: This is a clear area of budget differentiation from the Conservatives. Labour is protecting the school budget in real terms, but the Conservatives are only protecting flat cash per pupil. Both could feel like a cut for schools when you take inflation and rising pupil numbers into account.

RM: This is a frequently recurring manifesto promise. Both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats pledged this last time but class sizes have gone up slightly over the last five years.

Families and communities

RM: This idea of a National Primary Childcare Service is new. It is designed to appeal to parents frustrated by the cost of childcare and disappointed by the closure of Sure Start centres by the coalition.

Reforming government

RM: Ed Miliband has always made a virtue of standing up to newspapers and their owners, such as Rupert Murdoch over phone hacking, and the Mail on Sunday over its attack on his father. It appears to have come at a cost, with knives out for him in most of the printed press. This is a sign that the Labour leader is uncowed by newspaper attacks and prepared to move against too much media ownership being in one person or company’s hands (read: Murdoch’s Sun, Times and Sky stable).

Britain’s interests in the world

RM: This is a key issue for many voters on the left, particularly those who may be tempted by the Greens. It does not look like this will satisfy those who view TTIP as a deal for big corporations and want it to be abandoned entirely.