Policies & Promises

“You say one thing and then do something else, never keep your promises”

As a politician I have, of course, heard that many times – sometimes justifiably, sometimes not. We are also told that, as seems to be the case at last week’s county council elections, politicians aren’t listening to the voters.

For the politician there’s a problem here; if a particular issue climbs up the list of concerns of voters should politicians listen and change their policies accordingly or should they say “we can’t change our policies because we promised something different?”

Then there’s the question of how much difference policies make to voters when they decide who to support? I ask this because so often there appears to be a conflict between votes cast and the policies being pursued.

Take last week’s results in the Lincolnshire County area; in Boston and the south of the county immigration, quite understandably, was the key issue but if we look at a couple of other UKIP policies – they want to see the return of grammar schools – but in Lincolnshire they never went away; Conservatives on the county council fought tooth and nail in the seventies and eighties to retain them and succeeded. On-shore wind turbines are almost always opposed by local communities and the county council has the most robust policies the law allows but it didn’t stop UKIP campaigning on these matters as if the exact opposite was the case. Just as an aside it must be noted that here, as we await the decision on the Able UK planning application for their South Humber Energy Park to abandon wind energy which promises so much for the local economy would be disastrous.

Another strange result was in Gainsborough where a long-standing LibDem councillor lost his seat to UKIP. LibDems are the most pro-European of the three main parties so why would anyone swop their vote from them to UKIP? I pose these questions not to criticise how the electorate cast their votes – they are the masters – but to highlight how difficult it is for politicians and parties to cope with the criticism that ‘they aren’t listening’. Actually political parties spend enormous amounts of money in trying to ‘listen’ and to find out what voters think; surveys, polls and so on; personally I prefer the supermarket queue.

Another mystery is why Nigel Farage, formerly of the City of London and public school educated, or Eton educated Boris Johnson seem immune from the ‘out-of touch, public school boy’ label that the Labour Party do their best to stick on David Cameron and George Osborne. Is it just that both Nigel & Boris are engaging characters – which they are – or is there more to it? When the General Election comes will it be charisma or competence that triumphs? At a local level will the fact that both I and Austin Mitchell oppose our membership of the EU lose votes from pro-European supporters in our respective parties? Or will it be that the only way to secure an IN/OUT referendum will be to elect a Conservative Government that makes the difference?

Westminster has, of course, been dominated by the Queen’s Speech which, after all the splendour, is followed by six days of debate on its contents. Some have criticised it for being light on legislation – which seems to assume that all legislation is good; which is certainly not the case. Undoubtedly the Immigration Bill will attract much attention. It deals with many of the issues that those voters in Boston were expressing their concerns about, such as limiting access to public services only to those who have contributed through their taxes and making it easier to remove people from the UK who abuse the ‘right to a family life’ section of the Human Rights Act.

There are Bills dealing with pensions, a new Energy Bill aimed at ensuring prices are fair; others dealing with consumer rights, adult social care costs, law and order matters child care and much more. But the focus is still on stabilising our economy and encouraging growth as it should be and it is the economy that, despite my earlier comments about Europe, grammar schools and the like, that will determine whether or not the Government retains the confidence of the electorate in just two years time.

Perhaps it will be the Party that sets out a programme for dealing with the multitude of issues that face the country rather than parties that outline the problems but offer no solutions.