Manifestos

Mani effing estos

We’ve all seen them, some of us have even read them but what on earth is the point of manifestos these days. The Caledonian Cyclops went to court to prove that they are not promises but mere aspirations. A government could be elected and yet implement nothing in its manifesto and we would be powerless until the next election to do anything about it. Then there is a great choice, don’t vote for the shower in government but any other party could do exactly the same thing.

Now I am sure, but cannot find it, that there is a convention that no government will repeal laws that were in a previous government’s manifesto. There may be something in this because Labour never repealed Maggie’s laws restricting the Unions. The more cynical among us may say that this was because subsequent Labour governments actually agreed with clipping the wings of the smelly socks brigade.

If you take a fresh look at the winning manifestos over the last quarter of a century the common theme is that most of their aspirations did not make their way to the statute books.

I quite like Reform’s way of doing things this year. A press conference every week or two outlining their policies on various issues. This is obviously a reaction to the other parties saying “You have no policies” but it is an effective way of working and puts pressure on the others to react.

To return to the issue of why have manifestos in the first place, if their contents are only aspirations why call them manifestos in the first place. They should be called “wish lists” because that is all they are.

In 1997 Labour put this in their manifesto under education

• Cut class sizes to 30 or under for 5, 6 and 7 year-olds
• Nursery places for all four year-olds
• Attack low standards in schools
• Access to computer technology
• Lifelong learning through a new University for Industry
• More spending on education as the cost of unemployment falls

I am less than convinced they did all this or even 20% of it. The University was obviously an attempt at channeling Harold Wilson whose sole lasting achievement was the Open University and very worthwhile that was. In the 1960s my class size was 38 and there were no teaching assistants in those days.

Let’s move on to the Tory manifesto of 2010. Now we all know CallMeDave was not up against much but he even failed to beat the Caledonian Cyclops and ended up in a coalition with the LibDems led by the shyster Nick Clegg. Seeing as Cameron turned the Tories into the LibDems we can assume he was not overly concerned working with the yellow blob. Anything he didn’t really want to do could be excused by saying Cleggover would not agree. Perfect for both sides.

The 2010 manifesto concentrated on the economy, changing society. changing politics, protecting the environment and promoting our national interest. We didn’t really get the big society did we and our view of our national interest coincided nowhere with CallMeDave’s. In fact the national interest thing resulted in us devoting billions to foreign aid. It would be difficult to find a less grateful bunch of countries to give money to. I should have looked at the LibDem manifesto but I was not feeling strong enough. I do remember Clegg wanted proportional representation and he even got his referendum on it. Sadly for him, and luckily for us, it failed dismally leading to Clegg having a hissy fit and meltdown.

By now you may have divined I am not a great believer in manifestos and am absolutely in the dark about why they are even necessary. It would suffice if the politicians just stood on their soapboxes and spouted out their usual lies and half truths.

Some of the monumental changes in this country have not been the result of manifestos at all. Heath’s 1970 version just mentioned discussions with the EEC as was, nothing about joining the scumbags. None of the wars we have been involved in have been in anybody’s manifesto and Keith’s present attempt to implement a Stasi regime here was not in his manifesto. Even the invasion of foreigners happening daily has never been mentioned other than ways of stopping it, or not. Our police turning into social media sleuths as opposed to nicking villains was missing from every past manifesto. We are lied to on a regular basis and expected to just accept it.

We need a court case where the use of manifestos is banned, they are worthless.
 

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