Labour has a plan – but it's got a hole in the middle

FOR a programme earnestly focused on the future, the cover of Labour's 2010 election manifesto suggests a fondness for a child-like, familiar past. It has discarded the fashion in recent elections for a soft-focus photo of the leader. Instead, a stylised 1950s imagery depicts a couple with two children gazing across a pastoral idyll to a brilliant new sun rising in the distance. At its centre are the words "A Future Fair For All".

It is a bright and bold attempt to disguise a manifesto with no money. There are some predictable sweeteners – a pledge to raise the national minimum wage, an extension of paternity leave and an extra 4 a week "toddler's tax credit". But the long list of targeted bribes has gone, and there is certainly no bold new fiscal stroke as the centrepiece. Instead, other issues are ushered to the fore. They have a distinct Tony Blair, New Labour feel to them: a pledge to spread "excellence" across public services south of the Border, with more power for "strong school leaders", and for underperforming police forces to be taken over and their chief constables replaced. "Labour," says Mr Brown in phraseology that could have come straight out of Blair's brave new dawn of 1997, "will be restless and relentless reformers. Reformers of the market and reformers of the state."

Elsewhere there is a commitment not to raise the standard rate of income tax , which makes the absence of a similar pledge on VAT glaring. There are also well aimed pledges on voting reform, removing the last hereditary peers and a vote on lowering the voting age to 16.

In a flourish of innovation, Scottish Labour's manifesto comes in a memory stick. But there is little that echoes the UK one. The blazing Blairite commitment to public services reform down south is absent. And the party has a credibility problem with a Scottish manifesto: it's not in charge of the Scottish government, and the Holyrood election is not until next year.

As with the UK manifesto, there is an enormous hole in the centre. Mr Brown may present himself as The Man With The Plan. But there is no plan or detail set out as to how Labour would fulfil its commitment to halve the budget deficit over the next four years. This is the single most important issue in the entire document. But there is no narrative as to how this reduction will be achieved.

Manifesto minutiae do not begin to make up for this deficiency. And this is problematic for Labour since it is unlikely its fate rests with decisions formed on the basis of a manifesto that seeks to present side trimmings as the main dish. Labour's re-election prospects hang, critically, not on the small print of this manifesto but on the credibility of Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling to lead the UK towards fiscal stability and a sustainable recovery. Mr Brown, with experience of wrestling with the global financial crisis, believes his experience will prevail over David Cameron's youthful glibness. It is an appeal, less for restless, relentless change than for sticking with leaders you know and may trust. That is the paradox at the heart of the message Labour is now seeking to put across.