election2010

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One hundred and fifty pounds?

April 11, 2010 in Politics | No comments

And just one more, tiny, petty little thing before I go to bed.

“The Conservatives have outlined their plans to give four million married couples and civil partners an annual £150 tax break.” (Source: BBC)

Now, I’m a strong family man.  I love my wife 1 and think that commited relationships expressed in the declaration and execution of the promises of marriage 2 is an important part of society.

But £150?  What does that achieve?  Are people supposed to say “Hey, there’s a great tax break…let’s get married!” in response to the promise of £150?

Come on Tories, stop pledging to waste my money and come up with some ideas that will really fix society!!

  1. of 5 years and 2 days…YAY! ↩
  2. if you’re married, and took the traditional vows, I urge you to go read them, think hard about them, work out where you’re letting your spouse down and resolve to fix your broken promise…then do it again next week…and the week after…etc ↩

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Stating the Obvious

April 11, 2010 in Politics | No comments

Still on the election…*yawn*

So, Labour have announced 5 main pledges:

  • Secure the recovery
  • Raise family living standards
  • Build a high-tech economy
  • Protect frontline services
  • Strengthen fairness in communities

I like these pledges.  They are good.  But…well…isn’t this the bare minimum that our politicians should be doing?  I mean, the opposites of these are:

  • Secure the continuation of the recession
  • Lower family living standards
  • Maintain a low-tech economy
  • Damage frontline services
  • Weaken fairness in communities

OK, so I don’t really thing the Tories will be stating that they’re keen to do any of those – even though some of their policies might?

What do the Tories offer then?

  • Act now on debt to get the economy moving
  • Get Britain working by boosting enterprise
  • Make Britain the most family-friendly country in Europe
  • Back the NHS
  • Raise standards in schools
  • Change politics

Ooh, ooh.  “Change politics”…something Labour aren’t doing?  Though, change politics in which ways, it’s all a bit vague right? 1.  But really not much different.

So who’s going to stand up and say something bold, new and different.  Who’s got the big ideas that are going to lead Britain well in the next four years?  Who’s going to do more than the bare minimum I expect of my government?

I don’t see much on offer from these two.

  1. as high-level pledges will always be ↩

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Things I Understand and Things I Don’t

April 11, 2010 in Politics | 1 comment

Back on politics again I’m afraid.

Another conversation I was having was about political manifestos, pledges, and promises in the run-up to election time.

A good friend of mine, who works for a large financial organisation, and has a degree in law, stated that he didn’t really know how to fix the economy, and so the politicians can talk until they’re blue in the face about what they’re going to do to fix it – it probably won’t influence his vote all that much.

A good point from a person who was far more qualified than any of the other people in the room at the time to talk about finances.

And I agree!  I don’t know how to fix the budget.  I don’t know how to tackle crime.  I don’t know how to manage taxes and public spending. Most of the policies on offer sound good.

So I need politicians to be talking about more than those things.  I need bigger, bolder statements about what each party will do.

And I’d quite like them to be about the environment, creating a sustainable future, taxing the rich and giving to the poor, helping other countries out with aid and trade (sticking plasters) and international justice (to fix the root causes).

So, who’s talking about these things then?

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Election Publicity

April 10, 2010 in Politics | 1 comment

So the election is upon us and our household and circle of friends are taking it pretty seriously!

One thing that always bothers me is the imbalance of publicity. In the last council elections we had lots of publicity from Labour and the Tories, but there were at least two other candidates that we knew nothing about!

We had a conversation one night this week with a friend who, after the last election, had written to her local LibDem candidate asking why they hadn’t sent any publicity. They replied to say that they just didn’t have either the money to produce it or the manpower to deliver it.

This seems really unfair! And thinking about it I wonder why there isn’t help for candidates to do this. Perhaps part of the election deposit money could be used to independently produce and distribute a leaflet in which each candidate has a page or two with which to let us know who they are and what they stand for?

Is this too simple and obvious a solution? Is it not practical? Has it been tried before?

Of course, with the Internet we can choose to go and find out about parties and candidates easily and for free, but not everyone can do this, and not everyone is inclined too.

What would you do to improve election communications?

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