What do political parties’ manifestos say about their priorities in this year’s general election — and how have those changed since 2019? In a special analysis for Birmingham Eastside, Clare Harvey identifies the top six themes in the manifestos of the Conservatives, Greens, Labour, Liberal Democrats and Reform UK, including shared interests, and new entries.
With just two weeks now left until the election, Labour continues to lead in the polls, 21 percentage points ahead of its nearest rivals. Confidence in the Conservative Party is low, with Reform UK already declaring a Labour win and an ambition to be the main opposition party — but predictions show The Liberal Democrats much more likely to take on that role, while the Green Party could also take further seats.
There are five parties in England that are fielding over 600 candidates. But do we actually know what they are promising?
Analysis of manifestos shows the economy is the top objective for the Conservatives, Labour and Lib Dems. While all agree that the National Health Service needs more help, most parties’ manifestos appear cautious in the face of challenge — and Brexit has dropped down the agenda for all parties except Reform UK.
Party priorities 2024 | Flourish
New entries in parties’ top six concerns
Some issues in parties’ top six pledges for 2024 were ‘new entries’ since 2019: childcare (Conservatives), crime (Labour), jobs (Lib Dems) and the economy (Reform UK) fell into this category.
Care, the economy and work show up as low-profile policies in the 2019 Green Party manifesto, but enjoy a much higher profile in 2024: while ‘emissions’ is still their most-cited word in 2024, they are now fighting their corner on a wider range of issues.
Of Labour’s 2019 pledge themes, ‘health’ appears the most frequently in the 2024 manifesto. Industry is also a consistent focus, particularly in relation to the creation of Great British Energy.
Their longstanding plan to introduce a National Care Service has been carried forward to the 2024 manifesto. They say it is designed to tackle “inconsistent standards, chronic staff shortages, and [treat] people […] with the care, dignity and respect they deserve.” However, it doesn’t appear until page 100.
Social care has been a high profile focus for the Liberal Democrats, who pledge free personal care across the country. The Greens also propose this.
We asked the Alzheimer’s Society whether free personal care is workable in England. They pointed to two factors: the capacity of local authorities to foot the bill, and the need for the cap on social care costs — legislated for in the Care Act 2014 — to be addressed.
The Conservatives’ 2019 pledge that no-one would have to sell their home to pay for their care isn’t mentioned upfront in 2024, although they continue to pledge more nurses. Words from the 2019 manifesto which do not appear in the 2024 document include: “pay for care”, “points-based”, “universal credit”, “rail”, and “democracy commission”.
Reform UK has upped its interest in net zero — although only because of a claim to fund pledges through scrapping net-zero targets, which has been challenged by financial experts. They also promise to scrap Diversity, Equality and Inclusion (DE&I) roles in policing and cancel the UK’s membership of the World Health Organisation.
Text analysis carried out using keywords from BBC manifesto summaries 2019 and word frequency tables created using Chat GPT from 2024 manifestos.
Links to 2024 manifestos and BBC summaries of 2019 manifesto pledges
Manifestos for the 2024 UK general election — Vote for Policies
Conservative Party manifesto 2019: 13 key policies explained
Green Party manifesto 2019: 12 key policies explained
Labour Party manifesto 2019: 12 key policies explained
Liberal Democrat manifesto 2019: 12 key policies explained
Brexit Party: 12 key policies explained