Cameron’s election amnesia

By Sunder Katwala / @nextleft

The theme of the next election will cause problems for all politicians of all parties.

It will be the “why should anybody believe a word you say” election.

Jeremy Paxman et al will have a field day, so astonishingly cavalier have both David Cameron and Nick Clegg in neglecting the need to even attempt to reconcile what they said before the election with what they did afterwards. This goes far beyond the compromises of an hung Parliament and the coalition which resulted from it, since the parties concerned have not given unequivocal public commitments much if any weight in subsequent negotiations with others. As John Harris points out in his Guardian column today, this means that “the merchants of anti-politics have conclusive proof that some politicians will say anything to get elected”:

“Around the time of last year’s comprehensive spending review, some highlighted a “democratic deficit” between what was being proposed and what the Tories and Lib Dems had put before the public. The Fabian Society’s Sunder Katwala accused David Cameron of “amnesia about what he did and did not ask for a mandate for”. As Katwala pointed out, the central deceit was embodied in a reading of the election in Cameron’s 2010 conference speech: “The result may not have been clear-cut when it came to the political parties. But it was clear enough when it came to political ideas.” It takes Etonian chutzpah to spin a line as disingenuous as that.”

The comment quoted was sparked by David Cameron having clearly quite forgotten what he told the country on the weekend before the election – that he would not allow any frontline cuts while reducing the deficit.

At the level of ideas, the election was contested between two parties (who won a majority of the votes) accepted the need for deficit reduction but warned about spending cuts being too deep and too fast, and one which was prepared to make £6 billion of cuts in year one but wanted the voters to be clear that the structural deficit could be entirely eliminated in one parliament without cutting any services which the public value:

“What I can tell you is any cabinet minister, if I win the election, who comes to me and says: ‘Here are my plans’ and they involve frontline reductions, they’ll be sent straight back to their department to go away and think again. After 13 years of Labour, there is a lot of wasteful spending, a lot of money that doesn’t reach the frontline.”

I can never quite decide whether it would be more damning if he had believed this at the time he had said it or (as is much more likely to be the case), he knew it would not be true when he appealed for votes on that basis.

It would be quite unfair to Nick Clegg should the electorate regard David Cameron as more likely to keep a promise

The uncertain election outcome reflected the fact that key groups of voters rather rationally didn’t trust this claim, but the Conservatives were fortunate that the Liberal Democrats then decided not to negotiate at all on the deficit, and probably not because they believed Cameron’s solemn pledge.

This government may believe it is necessary to break this and other pledges – such as that not to have any major reorganisation of the NHS. What they can not claim is any democratic mandate at all for these enormous political gambles.

Sunder Katwala also blogs at Next Left.