The Best Intentions...

Thomas Stone

When a political party is in opposition, one of the best ways to increase support is to promise acts of parliament¹ that will appeal to the electorate. Theses statutes normally exaggerate the party’s targets, resulting in an unrealistic manifesto². And politicians; unlike those in industry, are not legally accountable³ for setting unattainable targets in their manifestos and pre election propaganda.

One example of a failed promise is ‘the reduction fares by 25% within 6 months’ on London’s buses and tubes; taken from the 1981 Labour Party manifesto. This promise was initially implemented, but because of the idealistic budgeting set by the government it caused a £69,000,000 deficit, and the changes were abolished soon after being enforced. Some policies don’t even make it that far, and while it is a generally accepted principle of contemporary politics to set goals which are impossible of attainment; it strongly undermines the concept of democracy. An exaggeration might demonstrate my point…

Potentially a political party could promise a billion new jobs when in opposition; and then if elected, pass legislation making it illegal for any humans to work in the UK. An extremely unlikely scenario, but technically legal⁴. But an Open University paper so eloquently put it:

“The Government will have to account for broken election promises at the next election. They will also be held to account by the opposition parties and by the media. Thus, while there may not be legal consequences arising from a failure to implement pre-election promises, there may be considerable political consequences and the Government may lose the trust of the voting public.”

And finally, in all the cynicism of this article, lets not forget; it is only the minority of the policies that are abandoned, and consequently the system [sometimes] works.

1 Acts of Parliament, Statutes and Legislation are all the same thing

2 A document outlining the parts intentions, should they be elected into government

3 As stated by Lord Diplock “Elected representatives must not treat themselves as irrevocably bound to carry out pre-announced policies contained in election manifestos” amongst numerous other sources

4 Of course this is not the only way legislation is made, and if something like this was seriously entertained then numerous bodies could intervene: the Law Commission, the Private Members’ Bill and the Royal Commission.)