MANIFESTO RANKINGS AND CONCLUSIONS

Now we've examined everything the parities have to offer in terms of equality for the next five years what are the conclusions we can draw?

The most obvious finding from the review is just how disappointing so many of the documents were in terms of their attitudes and ideas for equality. Obviously we expected a reasonable degree of sexist nonsense from New Labour, but they were far from alone in that, and the Greens in particular have some incredibly discriminatory polices.

Whilst the position of men's issues is very much on the rise in society, most parties fail to recognise such a change and seem remarkably out of touch with the general public. It's not just Labour and the Conservatives who are the problem either, even the less mainstream parties such as UKIP fail to recognise many of the issues never mind offer solutions to them and the BNP turn gender issues on their head by discriminating against females instead of males. It really is disappointing how few options there are in for those passionate about making our society a fairer place.

On the positive side, you could at least cherry pick polices from the top four parties in our rankings and come up with a decent enough manifesto, but you still wouldn't be covering the gender education gap, domestic violence, false allegations, healthcare issues, nor more wide-ranging issues such as general contempt for men in society. It seems no one is really willing to recognise misandry ass an issue let alone do anything about it.

Please do go out and vote on May 6th, if you can't bring yourself to vote for any party we've reviewed there may still be a decent independents standing in your constituency. The following is a summary ranking of the documents from a gender equality perspective as we see it, readers are welcome to post their own rankings in the comments should their views differ. Please remember we haven't considered the manifestos as a whole, we've only looked at gender issues and discrimination against men in particular, and you'd need to look at the wider picture too, such as whether a party was perhaps racially or religiously intolerant. Further still we do not endorse any party on this site and remain strict neutral.

1st place - Liberal Democrats - Three excellent policies - shared parenting, shared parental leave and removing innocent people from DNA database. Seems they're still examining the issues from the wrong perspective though and as a result don't have enough answers.
2nd place - UKIP - Hints at pensions equality, but misses most of the other issues. Only in second place as the other offerings are so poor.
3rd place - BNP - Innovative ideas on higher education and local government, but poor and even slightly sexist on family breakdown.
4th place - Conservatives - decent all round attempt completely ruined by ridiculously sexist pensions policy. A real shame.
5th place -  Greens - some of the worst polices of any party, but not the same all round contempt for men as Labour.
6th place - Labour - As expected, even wants to release prisoners based on gender.

We do value debate and the right of reply on this blog. As a result we're invited Harriet Harman, Lynne Featherstone and Teresa May  as well as all other parties to respond to the issues raised. I know we have members of political parties reading this blog from time to time and we'd happily publish any responses.

John Kimble

Comments

[amfortas]

You have done a splendid job, JK, and I do not recall any election anywhere where someone with your eye and talent has provided an analysis from the MRM perspective.

In the UK you have 6 distinct choices. America gave two. Oz generally gives about four, two having the chance of a polythene dog in hell.

But no alternative suitable anywhere.

In the last American Election I put myself forward as an MRM alternative - and 47 people wrote me onto the ballot. A Protest.

Please feel free - its a bit late for a campaign now - to write AMFORTAS on your ballot paper.

I could be persuaded to come back to the old Home to take the reins of Government and bring about the necessary changes. It has been a long time since Cromwell and I have a pointy head, not a round one. And a very pointy sword. I can do better.

[Groan]

Well done TROM. Really useful series and I for one have learned a lot. The tories a real surprise. Overall it shows how similar the views of the "political class" are whatever their party. Thanks for the suggestion amfortas as the choices don't look that good.