Conservative commitments - 2, 2 fails

As a bonus for the first day (and knowing I'll be away for a few), here's a second:

1.     Invest an extra £8bn a year for the NHS by 2020

The key to understanding this commitment is that although it’s quite generous compared to Labour, it was utterly unfunded. The Conservatives produced this one when the NHS began to be an issue in the campaign but gave no information about where the money would come from. A party claiming to be fiscally responsible should probably have plans for finding £8bn. Most people in this country like the idea of the NHS being better-funded, but an open and honest politician would have explained what would lose out.

By not even mentioning who the planned losers would be (if there was a plan at all), the Conservatives failed to be honest about how budgeting works. They gave the emotional impression that they could fund everything worthwhile, but did it through being irresponsible.

It’s also important to note that the plan for the NHS which suggested that it needed £8bn more was already pretty harsh, anticipating deep cuts (efficiency savings of a scale that have never been achieved and that are required on top of ‘savings’ already seen) in services.

£8bn in funding does not address the structural problems the Conservatives introduced, nor the massive long-term issues that the NHS faces. No mention was made of the Conservatives’ attachment to PFI, the system that is bankrupting hospitals across the country.

Conservative commitments -1, fail

I intend to make this a regular series of posts examining commitments the Conservative (and Unionist) Party made before the election, including those outside of the manifesto. I was unimpressed with their offerings and decided to go through them one by one. I haven't put them in much of an order.

1.     Introduce a law guaranteeing no rise in income tax rates, VAT or national insurance before 2020

As Parliament is able to change all laws, having both executive and legislative power, a law limiting Parliament is a pointless waste of time. This commitment was a cynical campaign stunt that says more about how willing the party is to deceive the electorate because the promise implies that it is a meaningful commitment. An open and honest politician would never have promised something that is a waste of time (and therefore money).

       Additionally, this pledge does not refer to all taxes. As a political statement, it is quite limited, because it leaves plenty of room for ‘stealth taxes’, which were heavily criticised by the Conservatives when Gordon Brown used them, or for other tax rises. As a bold statement, though, it helps give the general emotional impression of a party that is more against tax rises than other parties. 

 It's for effect, not impact, and is all style and no substance. I count that as a failure, although some fans of politics love that sort of thing.

Think about the news 6

This story was the top news of the day.
The BBC is far from the only one to lead with this headline, but it is unusual in containing the seeds of its own destruction within the same story.
As the BBC notes, almost nothing has changed, and what little change there is is probably an artifact of the calculations.
1. Inflation as measured by the ONS has a big variance. A change of 0.1% is easily within a margin of error.
2. The ONS says that the cause of this deflation is in air and sea fares. These are hardly regular purchases that most of us make each month.
3. Every analyst quoted says that it's not really deflation, but a temporary blip that doesn't really matter.
4. The BBC's head of statistics, possibly quoting the ONS, reports that the change is just because of the timing of Easter.

So this big news story is quite clearly not news at all. It's a complete waste of time, telling people about something that hasn't really changed. Perhaps some people are confused by it, some scared by it, some worried. It gives politicians a chance to produce empty and pointless soudbites about something, reassuring voters or stoking them up, depending on if they're in power or not.

There is real news out there about corruption, earthquakes, analysis of policies or government programmes, or even pets doing unusual things. This story is really dredging up nothingness.