Lib Dem Fun

OK, Gordon Brown has revealed Labour's 'General Election pledges' (but without actually calling an election), as announced by the BBC, who allowed the Tories and the Lib Dems to respond. Delightful is this:

Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg called the pledges "vacuous".

Yup. That from a leader of a party who couldn't even be bothered to think up a campaign slogan, so just bodged together the vacuous slogans dreamed up by Labour (A Future Fair For All) and the Tories' (Vote For Change, which, going by the date of the linked article, they invented a year ago) into the even more vacuous Change That Works For You. Building A Fairer Britain. For a start they could have used a colon rather than a full stop.

I accept it is difficult summing up your policies into a few words or sentences - to be fair, UKIP's original manifesto slogan 'Straight talking' was sidelined in favour of 'Empowering the people', neither of which is going to sway voters one way or another - so let's look a bit deeper at the Lib Dems' slogans and see how they translate into actual policies. Under 'What we stand for' on their website we find this:

Environment: Making real commitments to stop climate change

The climate ain't changing, and even if it were, there no reason to assume that it's changing for the worse or that there's anything we can do about it.

Economy: A sustainable, green economy for Britain

'Sustainable' and 'green' are meaningless and what is this obsession with 'Britain'? Firstly it's 'the United Kingdom' and secondly, I doubt whether there's much a UK government can do about the economy in Peru or in Malaysia or one of those other countries that aren't the UK.

Health: A healthcare system fit for the 21st century

Drivel. 'Fit for the 19th or 20th centuries' wouldn't sound too awe-inspiring and it'll be a while before we have one fit for the 22nd.

Law and Order: More police on the streets to reduce crime

Fair enough. That's a proper policy. Can't argue with that.

Education: Cutting class sizes and scrapping tuition fees

Fair enough. I'm not sure that cutting class sizes ought to be the top priority, and I'm all in favour of people paying a fair chunk towards their own higher education (rather than the taxpayer generally stumping up), but hey, at least they are proper policies that you can be for or against.

Transport: Putting passengers first and improving mobility

A bit vague, but seems fair enough.

I'll have a look at the fatal flaws in their idea of increasing the tax-free personal allowance to £10,000 later on.