Thursday, April 15, 2010
CLEGG SAYS DON'T VOTE LIBDEM (OR LABOUR, CONSERVATIVE OR SNP)
I saw Clegg's election broadcast yesterday which involved him walking across countryside strewn with pieces of paper, alleged to be election promises that had been broken & saying that we shouldn't vote for old parties that have broken their previous promises.
These is the same LibDem leader who decided his party should cynically, without any excuse, break its absolute Manifesto promise to support a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. Manifesto promises are the most binding that any party can make. They are the contract with the citizenry justifying their election. When a party breaks such a promise they can no longer claim our trust. Sometimes, when the cause is an economic downturn or something turning out to be legally or economically more difficult than expected, they may be forgiven if never again wholly trusted. However Clegg's broken promise is not of that nature. It would have been easy to vote to let us have the democratic choice over Europe they promised, indeed easier than to break it. It follows automatically that there are now no circumstances whatsoever under which any promise made by him or his party, no matter how easy to implement, can ever, under any circumstances, be trusted.
The LibDems are not alone in this - Labour, the SNP & the Conservatives made the same promise. Labour cynically broke it to. The SNP had the power to have such a referendum in Scotland but again broke their promise. While the Conservatives did vote for a referendum Cameron subsequently broke his "cast iron" promise that, under him, we would still get this vote. However only the LibDem's Manifesto launch contained the words "promise" 7 times, "trust" 5 times & says we should not vote for parties whose promises we cannot trust.
I think we should take his advice.
That the LD's think they can get away with this shows what contempt the politicians, of all semi-official parties hold the people in.
These is the same LibDem leader who decided his party should cynically, without any excuse, break its absolute Manifesto promise to support a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. Manifesto promises are the most binding that any party can make. They are the contract with the citizenry justifying their election. When a party breaks such a promise they can no longer claim our trust. Sometimes, when the cause is an economic downturn or something turning out to be legally or economically more difficult than expected, they may be forgiven if never again wholly trusted. However Clegg's broken promise is not of that nature. It would have been easy to vote to let us have the democratic choice over Europe they promised, indeed easier than to break it. It follows automatically that there are now no circumstances whatsoever under which any promise made by him or his party, no matter how easy to implement, can ever, under any circumstances, be trusted.
The LibDems are not alone in this - Labour, the SNP & the Conservatives made the same promise. Labour cynically broke it to. The SNP had the power to have such a referendum in Scotland but again broke their promise. While the Conservatives did vote for a referendum Cameron subsequently broke his "cast iron" promise that, under him, we would still get this vote. However only the LibDem's Manifesto launch contained the words "promise" 7 times, "trust" 5 times & says we should not vote for parties whose promises we cannot trust.
I think we should take his advice.
That the LD's think they can get away with this shows what contempt the politicians, of all semi-official parties hold the people in.
Labels: British politics, election, Social
