I'll take all of those ideas one by one:
scrap student fees - how are the Universities going to fund education?
How they were paid for before student fees - government. Student fees are a relatively new "invention" and previously the full cost would be met by the Exchequer, currently the Exchequer funds about a third of the cost. It is complicated by the fact that fees are not paid up front and are instead covered by loans which are not all paid back which is why a recent change required student loans to be considered differently which added roughly £12billion a year to the public debt.
embark on a mass social housing programme - how is this to be paid for?
Again, the same way mass social housing has always been paid for - from the exchequer or local authority. With borrowing rates so low, this would actually be the ideal time to borrow to invest in the public housing stock but politically, borrowing has become toxic regardless of the economic benefit. Currently, the lack of state owned social housing means that, for example, housing benefit is predominately paid to the private sector - if there was a mass social house building programme, more public money would remain in the public purse. Of course, this also means that less public money would go out to the private sector. There are political and economic arguments for and against these consequences.
renationalise the railways - who is going to pay for that?
Again, the Exchequer...otherwise known as the tax payer. However, direct government subsidies to the railways is around £5 billion, an increase of 200% since privatisation (courtesy of full fact) Fares are also higher by 20% in real terms since 1995 - these are both costs borne by the tax payer. The cost of nationalising the railways is nothing as it would just happen as each franchise expires, rather than be re-tendered it would be brought back into state control. In a similar scenario to social housing, rather than subsidies going to private companies, that money and revenue from fares would be back into the public purse.
State control chills me to the bone, I really don't want shitheads like Len McClusky in charge of Labour laws. I remember the old BR and how absolutely shocking it was, dirty hovels of locomotives.
Privatised railways are less efficient than many of their European counterparts, delays and cancellations are commonplace, fares are increasing above inflation and don't compare well to other countries - sure, there have been investment in rolling stock but we have paid for much of that and on expiry of the franchise they would come back under public ownership. I would seem that your objection is ideological rather than economic and that is fair enough, but there are also economic arguments in favour of nationalisation and indeed many nationalised industries across Europe are much better examples of rail systems than ours.
a four-day week - An increase in staffing costs by 20%, instantly, who is going to work the other day and where are all of these people going to come from given we have a full employment economy right now? Who will enforce it and how? More state control with the Unions (not voted for by the vast majority of the public) in control. Len fucking McClusky is a cunt.
A four day week is an ideological aspiration and won't happen in the near future. Even a Labour commissioned report says it is unworkable. However, it is a discussion that needs to be had. We are facing competing pressures that are only going to get worse. The incremental increase in retirement age and an increasing population is increasing the number of working age people in the labour market and along with increased automation we are heading towards a point where there will be too many people and not enough jobs.
getting rid of private schools - why? what harm are they doing? If they are performing better than state schools then what are state schools aspiring to do to get to the private school level?
It is argued that private school perpetuate inequality - Finland, for example, has very few private schools and is admired for the quality of it's education system. Getting rid of private schools in itself achieves nothing, it would need to be part of a radical overhaul of education in our country.
scrapping universal credit - why?
Because it is not better than the system it replaced. Personally, I prefer Universal Basic Income
abolishing the schools inspectorate - why, what effect will it have on pupils, schools and teachers?
What positive benefit does it have on pupils, schools and teachers. Good education is not provided by school inspectors. A high quality, well funded education system will. Require teachers to be educated to a Masters level, ensure class sizes are no more than 20 and provide real academic and vocational choices at 14 and education achievement will increase. Ranking schools on narrow league tables does not improve educational achievement, it just promotes competition rather than collaboration and good schools, in good areas see people with money moving in and those with less are priced out and the virtue-less circle continues.
An end to prescription charges - finally one we can agree on
. 9 out of 10 prescriptions are dispensed free of charge. Why shouldn't those who can afford it pay a small contribution towards heavily subsidised medication?
Free care for elderly people - who pays for this and why not means test it?
I would pay for it out of my taxes.
free nursery places for toddlers - why toddlers? Why not all kids from 3 months up? You get 30 hours free from 3 at them moment, how would this policy differ?
At the moment, many child care providers opt out of the current system because they can't afford to provide it.
You also missed off the renationalisation of all utilities, state interference in private company boards and forced employee representation on boards. State control is as abhorrent an idea that I can think of, I really detest the idea that the state should get involved in private lives of individuals any more than is absolutely necessary.
