I'm in Paris with possibly the most bland collection of holidary reading ever: a complete set of election manifestoes. Is it worth the bother? Judging from new Labour's record in office, the answer is probably not. On 6 May 1997, just four days after its first election landslide, Gordon Brown announced the independence of the Bank of England. It wasn't simply the case that the Party had 'forgotten' to mention this in its manifesto. It had actually promised to "reform the Bank of England to ensure that decision-making on monetary policy is more effective, open, accountable and free from short-term political manipulation." Retrospectively, this could be taken as a hint of what was to come, but I've yet to hear an explanation of how removing large swathes of economic decision-making from democratic control is a recipe for making it more open and accountable.
Nor was this decision unique. In 2001, Labour's Manifesto (in)famously promised "We will not introduce 'top-up' fees and have legislated to prevent them," but this did not prevent the Party from legislating for such fees in its subsequent term in office. Other broken promises are more farcical, such as the commitment to building a "first-class athletics stadium for the World Athletics Championships in 2005." Plans for a World Class stadium in the Lee Valley ignominiously collapsed, Britain lost the right to host the games, and the genius response has been to bid for the 2012 Olympics - with the promise of a World Class stadium in the Lee Valley.
But its the things that weren't mentioned in the Manifesto at all that have been amongst the most debated of Labour's second term: anti-terror legislation, ID cards (aborted, but not forgotten) and, of course, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. "Events, dear boy, events" - in Harold MacMillan's famous phrase - are the driving force of politics, the Government might claim in its defence. Yet this does not account for the fact that the definition of an event is politically contestable. The shock of September 11th clearly called for some kind of political action - but then how many more sickening and deadly spectacles in recent history have been met with inertia, and treated as non-events? Nor do such events account for the type of action that is taken. Still less do they justify it. The institutions of government have fallen over themselves to legislate in response to the new terror threat, and to legitimate the bombing countries that have, in and of themselves, posed no threat. But what mechanisms exist for engaging the public in these decision-making processes? Or for involving us in these decisions? The answer, sadly, is: very few. OR
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