The political parties make no difference.
Nor do the countries where they are.
Politicians everywhere make promises and often break them, flying directly in the face of those who voted them in at least partially based on those promises they made.
The insanity here is that there is no accountability.
OK, the politicians may ultimately lose out if they fail to get re-elected, but the real damage has already been done.
Surely there needs to be accountability when important promises (particularly at election times).
Sometimes the promises have been massaged but the breaking of the promise was effectively the same. For example, in 1997, Tony Blair’s New Labour pledged not to increase income tax rates for middle earners, a commitment aimed at maintaining the party’s appeal to a broad base of voters. However, while Labour kept this promise by not raising the basic or higher rates of income tax, they increased National Insurance contributions, which effectively raised the tax burden on middle earners.
In some other cases there are excuses for why promises weren’t kept. An example was from 2010, when David Cameron pledged to reduce net migration to the UK to below 100,000 per year, a key promise aimed at addressing public concerns about immigration levels. However, this target was never met during his tenure or subsequently. It’s true that the government faced significant opposition from employers and universities who pushed back against stricter immigration controls, arguing that such measures would harm the economy and the higher education sector​ … but surely that would have been known about before such a promise was made? In reality, the only year that net migration to the UK fell below 100,000 per year was in 2020, due to Covid-19.
There is much mud-slinging between political parties (and in the media), bringing up numerous broken promises … but none of that generates real incentive to avoid making breakable promises in the future.
So what should happen?
Unfortunately, we’re no longer allowed to execute politicians that broke their promises, so what are the alternatives?
If it was my choice, I’d ensure there are timescales on the promises made and, if any are broken then the ruling political party is instantly removed from office (and not able to run for re-election), plus those who made the promises banned from earning megabucks via private contracts (or above a set level of wage) for a period of years afterwards.
I know that there are many implications to the perceived instability of a government that is suddenly thrown out of office and obviously, it’ll never happen. But it’d be interesting because those in power would think a lot more about the promises they make, including those they rely on to deliver the promises.
I’m sure there are many other ideas related to keeping politicians true to their promises so please do contact me with your thoughts and I’ll add them here.
