The Party Manifestos 2015: Liberal Democrats.

Politics The Lib Dem manifesto cover somehow manages to encompass versions of the colours from all the other main parties apart from the UKIPs. Not sure what to make of that.

The BBC

Protect the independence of the BBC while ensuring the Licence Fee does not rise faster than inflation, maintain Channel4 in public ownership and protect the funding and editorial independence of Welsh language broadcasters.

To promote the independence of the media from political influence we will remove Ministers from any role in appointments to the BBC Trust or the Board of Ofcom.

Maintain funding to BBC World Service, BBC Monitoring and the British Council.

Pretty similar to the Labour manifesto though the BBC would still be fucked financially here even if the mention of the licence fee at least confirms the LibDems still believe in the licence fee. Saying you'll maintain funding to those things doesn't indicate where that funding would be from, top slicing the licence fees or central taxation as it used to be.

Global Emissions

Pass a Zero Carbon Britain Act to set a new legally binding target to bring net greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050.

As the cover indicates the environment runs right through the manifesto and is mentioned in relation to most areas, in transport policy for example with the replacement of older buses with "low emission ones". There are also two pages outlining "five green laws" covering such things as recycling targets and promoting electric cars. Sadly all of that is underdone somewhat by essentially promoting fracking, still, even if they want to hand completed wells over to geothermal heat developers for renewable purposes afterwards. But it doesn't really explain how you can have zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 with thirty-five years if we're still doing it now. They're banning fracking in national parks though. So ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Libraries

Citizens expect a good service from their public services, and rightly so. While many schools, hospitals, libraries and other public institutions offer world-class standards, we could do so much better: integrating services and making them more accessible, as well as improving the response when things go wrong.

Complete broadband rollout to every home, and create an innovation fund to help keep local GPs, post offices and libraries open.

Develop the Community Budgets model for use in rural areas to combine services, encouraging the breaking down of boundaries between different services. This will help keep rural services like GP surgeries, pharmacies, post offices and libraries open by enabling them to cooperate, share costs and co-locate in shared facilities

Support local libraries and ensure any libraries under threat of closure are offered first for transfer to the local community.

The biggest mention of libraries I've seen in the manifestos but its still an afterthought with little understanding of what a comprehensive library service requires. When they say "transfer to the local community" what they really mean is donated building and volunteers. This used to be a profession. Sigh.

Film Industry

Support growth in the creative industries, including video gaming, by continuing to support the Creative Industries Council, promoting creative skills, supporting modern and flexible patent, copyright and licensing rules, and addressing the barriers to finance faced by small creative businesses.

The Arts and Culture section of the manifesto is utter garbage to be honest. "We are proud of the arts in Britain and will support them properly" it says without any detail at all. Apart from committing to free museums there's nothing. Sigh again.

Gender Equality

Set an ambitious goal to see a million more women in work by 2020 thanks to more jobs, better childcare, and better back-to work support.

Challenge gender stereotyping and early sexualisation, working with schools to promote positive body image and widespread understanding of sexual consent law, and break down outdated perceptions of gender appropriateness of particular academic subjects.

Work to end the gender pay gap, including with new rules on gender pay transparency.

Continue the drive for diversity in business leadership, maintaining momentum towards at least 30% of board members being women and encouraging gender diversity among senior managers, too. We will work to achieve gender equity in government programmes that support entrepreneurs.

Pretty close to the other parties though the section about positive body image is welcome, especially in schools were it's so often an excuse for bullying. Elsewhere there's a commitment for "swift implementation of the new rules requiring companies with more than 250 employees to publish details of the different pay levels of men and women in their organisation" which is the same as the Tories and on which I once again ask why 250? Why not everyone?  One other thing worth mentioning is that they want to "create a national helpline for victims of domestic and sexual violence – regardless of gender – to provide support, encourage reporting and secure more convictions."  Good.

You can download the whole manifesto here.

https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/libdems/pages/8907/attachments/original/1429028133/Liberal_Democrat_General_Election_Manifesto_2015.pdf?1429028133

Still wouldn't vote for them though.