How many more broken promises before all trust is shattered?
By James Slack
Last updated at 11:56 AM on 5th February 2011Only time will tell whether David Cameron was correct to forge ahead this week with the Government’s ‘NHS revolution’ in the face of fierce opposition from much of the medical profession.
The health service is undeniably inefficient, bureaucratic and in dire need of reform.
Yet whether it is wise to hand so much power, and control of 80 per cent of its vast £2 billion-a-week budget, to GPs is another question entirely.
Partnership in ditching pledges: David Cameron and Bick Clegg have a reputation
What is certain is that if this major upheaval is not a success the Prime Minister won’t be able to say he was justified in trying because he had a mandate for such reforms.
On the contrary, he had made a pledge during last year’s election campaign that after years of Labour meddling he would not introduce any more ‘top-down reorganisations of the NHS’.
Of course, Mr Cameron can say that nobody expects politicians to keep every promise.
Circumstances and priorities change, and commitments made in Opposition often prove unrealistic in power.
However, the danger for the Prime Minister is that his Government is not breaking the occasional pledge — it is doing so on an almost weekly basis.
Most worryingly, if the public starts to believe that he is serially untrustworthy, as Tony Blair discovered, it will be very hard to lose such a bad reputation.
To be fair to Mr Cameron, a distinction should be drawn between the pre-election promises he made and abandoned on tax and spending (considering the severity of the economic problems he found Labour had left behind) and those which apply to other areas of government policy.
Having discovered the true scale of the structural deficit, it was inevitable that difficult decisions had to be taken.
Thus pre-election promises were reneged upon: VAT was increased, the educational maintenance allowance (worth up to £30 a week and aimed at encouraging the poor to stay on in the sixth form) was scrapped and the commitment to recognise marriage in the tax system was sidelined.
Of course, reducing the national debt is a priority which must trump all others — however painful that may prove. However, it is the countless number of other U-turns which — given there seems to be no good political excuse for them — are beginning to bitterly upset the public and the Tory Party alike.
These started within days of Mr Cameron taking office, and they have continued ever since.
First came the abandonment of the long-standing pledge to scrap the Human Rights Act and replace it with a British Bill of Rights.
Each broken promise has a cumulative and corrosive effect which — by the next election — could cost the Tories dear
It would be convenient to blame the decision not to do anything about this deeply unpopular piece of European legislation in this Parliament on the need to pacify the Tories’ Lib Dem Coalition partners, who are fully signed up to the Act.
But the truth is that some senior Tories, such as Attorney General Dominic Grieve, never saw the abolition of this hated legislation as a priority.
As a result, foreign criminals and terrorists continue to make a mockery of Britain’s attempts to have them deported.
Then there is the Government’s wavering prison policy: a commitment to jailing more criminals crumbled as Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke announced plans to reduce the prison population by 3,000.
He made this decision on ideological grounds and it had nothing to do with keeping the Lib Dems happy — however delighted they were by his liberal view that ‘prison does not work’.
Next, the Tories’ promise that anybody caught carrying a knife should expect jail was ditched. And, in a truly bewildering volte-face considering that he once said the idea of prisoners having the vote made him ‘physically ill’, Mr Cameron said he could no longer oppose enfranchising them following a controversial ruling by the European Court of Human Rights.
Only belatedly has Mr Cameron began to challenge that ruling by allowing a free vote in the Commons.
As for other threats to Britain’s sovereignty, nothing has been done to repatriate powers from Europe to Westminster.
Meanwhile, the U-turns go on. A manifesto commitment to ban the hardline Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahir was abandoned.
On binge-drinking — a social evil the Tories raised repeatedly when in Opposition — a promise to end the sale of cut-price alcohol was watered down and cans of strong lager are still available for less than 50p.
Police and residents living in areas blighted by the effects are furious. Other voters have been left disappointed that Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles’ promise to restore weekly bin collections has not been fulfilled.
Some 13 councils have abandoned weekly bin rounds since the election — meaning that 506,000 more households have been forced to accept fortnightly collections, while no one who lost their weekly service has had it reinstated. Few issues enrage the public more.
Another broken promise involves the British computer hacker Gary McKinnon, who faces decades in a U.S. jail for crimes allegedly committed from his London home.
In Opposition, both Mr Cameron and Nick Clegg condemned plans to send the Asperger’s Syndrome sufferer to America for trial. But now they are in power, McKinnon’s case remains in legal limbo.
Even on City bonuses and MPs’ expenses — the two issues which dominated the televised election debates — the Government has been accused of empty rhetoric.
Far from passing a law to stop grotesque City bonuses, ministers watched as bankers awarded themselves £7 billion in pay-outs.
And as for MPs, there are distressing signs that abuse of expenses — which brought the last Parliament into disrepute — is not being tackled despite the much-ballyhooed promise of a ‘new politics’.
Indeed, Mr Cameron has even attacked the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, the new expenses watchdog, which had introduced a degree of probity to the corrupt system. The Premier said the body had caused ‘pain and difficulty’ to MPs and has even hinted that it could be scrapped.
However exhaustive this list of about-turns may seem, it is not comprehensive. Nor does it include the various betrayals perpetrated by the Lib Dems on their own supporters — most notably the trebling of university tuition fees and the failure to bring an end to the curfew element of anti-terrorist control orders .
These U-turns do not mean Mr Cameron is as duplicitous as Tony Blair — a Prime Minister with the ignominious distinction of being the least trusted politician in recent history.
For Blair — together with his cronies Mandelson and Campbell — lies and deception were part of the political process, culminating in the disgraceful way he tricked Britain into waging war against Iraq.
Rather, Mr Cameron, whose eyes have been trained firmly on the economy, is vulnerable to accusations that he has paid insufficient attention to the way his ministers have failed to honour commitments.
Ultimately, if he can restore Britain to economic health, David Cameron will be forgiven. But he must recognise that the public feel passionately angry about issues such as irregular dustbin collections and the failure to deport foreign criminals.
Each broken promise has a cumulative and corrosive effect which — by the next election — could cost the Tories dear.
And, of course, there is much more at stake than just the Government’s own reputation. Voters got rid of Labour because they believed it could no longer be trusted to tell the truth.
David Cameron promised that he — unlike that self-proclaimed ‘pretty straight kinda guy’ Mr Blair — could be taken at his word.
If that turns out to be untrue, then it is democracy that will suffer. More is at stake here than individual politicians’ reputations.
Explore more:
- People:
- Dominic Grieve,
- Tony Blair,
- Nick Clegg,
- Gary McKinnon,
- David Cameron
- Places:
- London,
- Iraq,
- America,
- Europe
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The point is the British voters have for 13 years been told a pack of lies by NuLeibour, and their trust for all politicians has dropped to an all time low. The U turn on the EU will be one that comes back and haunts our British politicians to the end of time. Add that to the Immigrant problem and no one now believes a word any of them say - we are looking for action. Still a long way to go in this parliment, so Cam' may get away with it, but I'll be looking at how the local elections go in the coming years. People voted in the last GE just to remove Brown and his dodgy crew, next time they will vote to remove the EU and their stupid laws that work against the best interest of the British people.
- Malc, Bolton, UK, 05/2/2011 15:31
Liberal geek pretending to be a tory. With the economy in it's current mess he had all the reason anyone ever needed to keep the promises he made on immigration, the human rights scam and the EU. But he won't do anything that's not fluffy and liberal. Chasing votes on a mythical centre of politics. Sack him. Get a proper tory.
- Rick, Lincs, 05/2/2011 15:17
I want to know what motive is behind the proposal to sell publicly owned forests. Does anyone else see a similarity between this and 24 hour pub opening and the mega-casinos (thank heaven's Mr Two Jags idea for THIS one was seen through!)? NOBODY has aked for this. Politicians have every reason to be distrusted and I want to know more about WHO is going to benefit. It has been reported that there are people, related to senior politicians, who are involved in the total nonsense of renewable energy. It would be interesting to know if they have any financial interest in forestry?
- Graham, Plymouth, 05/2/2011 15:02
Should have listened to Hitchens, in the long run he is always right.
- bingo, far far away, 05/2/2011 11:50
I agree Nick Brazil, but I lost faith in Cameron the day he did the dirty deed with the libs. After being a Conservative all my voting life I am now going to be a floater. Who in Gods name can be trusted in parliament, and I mean both of the houses? WHO? They all seem to be there to feather their own nests, lie, be decietful, and forget straight away who put them there, and have no thought for what we want WE WANT not the rest of the world. I believe charity begins at home and my goodness at home it is certainly needed now, but not being delivered.What a crock the whole situation is becoming.
- Hera, Shropshire, 05/2/2011 11:40
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Saturday 5 February 2011
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