With the local elections out of the way, the political parties are now turning their attention to the general election – and first of all the manifestoes. The LibDems have said to expect theirs to appear ‘within a fortnight of the council elections’, and the other parties are likely to wait to digest the local election results before publishing their own.
This means there is still a chance to influence what is in them, and indeed both the Conservatives and Labour are seeking input. So this is your chance to keep up the pressure on as much as possible in the run up to the launches of all the party manifestos.
Conservative Home are running a survey on the Conservative manifesto, which you can access here: take our General Election survey.
And with Labour you can make suggestions directly to the party: Shape our manifesto.
Liberal Democrat members have the chance to vote on their party policies, so if you are one or know one, please ask them to make their voice heard on HS2. The Green Party & UKIP already have policy to oppose HS2, but it wouldn’t hurt to tell them that they are both right on this issue!
Meanwhile we wrote to Theresa May to ask her to publish the Heywood Report and got a reply from No 10 yesterday – merely to say they were forwarding our request. With the local election results showing gains for the Conservatives, we think they should be bold with their manifesto – and commit to cancelling HS2.