Pointless election promises: Let’s not be seduced this time around

THE weeks leading up to Christmas might be described as the Anything-in-Wonderland period. 

We daydream, wilfully deluding ourselves, imagining that Auntie Elsie might finally pass on the keys of the Carcassonne gite, even if we know that is never going to happen. We dream that the diamonds might be real and that the credit card bill might be tolerable. We dream to console ourselves, hoping that something might be different to the entirely predictable Stilton-and-socks reality waiting to unfold on Christmas morning.

We are at that point in the political cycle. We are, again, almost prepared to believe that, as the election race is under starter’s orders, that almost anything is possible, that even the most radical promises have a chance of becoming active, society-changing policy. We are, despite our own best interests, happy to be seduced by political parties’ promises, though there is more than enough evidence to convict even a banker that most of them are bunkum. We are prepared to believe election assurances, despite Pat Rabbitte’s cynical, but honest, mid-term reality check, when, challenged on broken promises, he admitted: “Isn’t that what you tend to do during an election?”