‘You were the future once’ – third sector prospects in the 2019 election manifestos

The times in which policies promoting ‘third sector’ charities, social enterprises and other socially driven organisations lay at the heart of national policy agendas such as the ‘third way’ have long since passed (Kendal, 2003). The 2019 election manifestos of the main political parties scarcely mention charity directly, let alone volunteering, donations or the charity commission (Kay, 2019; Whitehead, 2019). There is no ‘grand plan’ for the third sector in any of these documents. Perhaps this is because the third sector’s role in public services is now so embedded in the status quo that it hardly needs to be remarked upon or legislated for (Walker, 2017). This may be true for the Conservative and Liberal democrat Manifestos, which can be largely summarised as offering a continuation of the status quo for the sector. In the case of the Labour Manifesto, the role of charity might simply be relatively unimportant compared to the proposed expansion of the public sector. Along with many other institutions, third sector organisations under a Labour Government might simply have to accommodate themselves to a radically new terrain, in which public sector growth takes centre stage. Nevertheless, some policies give small hints as to how Labour might envisage the third sector fitting into a reformed public realm.