Although it has
being going on for months, the UK’s General Election campaign doesn’t
officially start until next week. I doubt I’ll be alone in wishing it was all
over already but just as many people seem excited by the prospect. However,
something I won’t be doing this time is giving much attention to the various political
party manifestos, the magazine-style documents the political parties publish
detailing their policy platforms. These used to offer a guide to who to vote
for but seem far less meaningful in an era of ‘pick and mix’ coalition politics.
While manifestos
have always represented the outcome of ideological horse-trading within parties
they usually contain some degree of internal policy coherence. But compromise
between parties effectively destroys this. The 2010 General Election, for
example, produced a Coalition with a programme for government that didn’t
appear in either the Conservative or Liberal Democrat party manifestos. Nobody
voted for the policy mix subsequently pursued and we’ll never know if the quickly
cobbled together package of measures has produced superior economic and social
outcomes to what would have occurred if the Conservatives had governed alone as
a minority administration. Either way, however, the possibility of another hung
Parliament and thus some kind of post-Election arrangement between one or more
parties makes it harder to take manifestos in the traditional sense at face
value.
In my view political
parties should only publish detailed manifestos if they also rule out a formal coalition
or some other informal post-electoral pact in the event of a hung Parliament. Otherwise
parties should simply issue a short statement of overall intent – akin to an
organisational mission statement – along with a clear list of red line policies
they would either not deviate from or not sign-up to following any
post-Election agreement with other parties.
Politicians who wish
to garner public trust should demonstrate that they are more interested in
policy than politics. The best way to lose trust is to stand for office on a
detailed policy agenda merely to ditch this once the votes have been counted.