Both parties are in fantasy land - but Sunak's tax attack on Labour is rich given what his government has cost voters
The parties fighting this election have yet to publish their manifestos. Until they do, their number-crunching is just speculation. What we do know is what Sunak's policies have cost households so far. And that both main parties are making outlandish claims which don't add up.
Before we get on to any of the numbers - from Rishi Sunak's claim about Labour raising taxes by £2,000 to the more outlandish numbers going around today - here's the most important thing you have to know right now.
The parties fighting this election have yet to publish their manifestos.
Each manifesto will be fantasy too. It isn't obvious why either party would allow itself to be deported from fantasy land via a manifesto they themselves have concocted. Fantasy land is their home where anything may be whatever they wish it to be. It's a form of lying.
There’ll never be a Utopia, and it’s only a form of lying to set such ideals before the multitude.
George Gissing - Denzil Quarrier (1892)
There’ll never be a Utopia, and it’s only a form of lying to set such ideals before the multitude.
George Gissing - Denzil Quarrier (1892)
4 comments:
From Wikipedia:
Rhetoric is the art of persuasion. It is one of the three ancient arts of discourse (trivium) along with grammar and logic/dialectic.
Persuasion doesn't necessarily need to be backed up with facts or logic. And when you consider how 'spin' and 'distraction' are being used more and more by politicians trying to persuade you then you have to think that politically rhetoric is the same as lying.
But perhaps the two main parties with little difference between them see rhetoric as the distinguishing way forward. We already known that manifestos are not binding, so fantasy land it is.
Talking of fantasy land, Guy Fawkes hints at a sex scandal involving Keith Strimmer, the Shadow Minister for Grassy Verges and Open Spaces.
https://order-order.com/2024/06/05/unreported-affair-hacks-are-gossiping-about-privately/#comments
If manifestos meant anything, they would be revisited in enormous detail on a regular basis, and would be subject to a yearly review. "We said we'd do x, y, and z. Now, how well do you think we've done?"
The current system is like being given targets at work, but never having a meeting to review whether you've met them. Or worse, like getting a job on the basis of an interview, the content of which is instantly forgotten.
DJ - yes, they seem to have opted for persuasion and nothing else. As if they absorbed the Nudge Unit approach, blended it with political dishonesty and here we are, nothing but rhetorical gestures.
dearieme - blimey, some comments are more than hints too. If true, the pressure to keep it buried will be colossal. Until Strimmer becomes PM perhaps, then other ambitions may come into play.
Sam - that's it, there should be a yearly review. It is not dissimilar to ignoring failed climate predictions which any government could easily use as a useful justification for getting out of Net Zero. The media could hammer them on both, but of course they don't.
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