The three main parties are promising paradise. Let's play along for a second
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Version 0 of 1. Five years ago, David Cameron and Nick Clegg stood in a Downing Street rose garden, full of promises. Neither of them envisioned the struggle ahead. With just one week to go, all manifestos published, the promises are rolling out once more. Gifts tied in red tape, tripping off the conveyor belts of politicians’ tongues, each seemingly more absurd than the last. The electorate are being promised the earth (no matter that 50% of rural land in England and Wales is in the hands of just 36,000 aristocrats, or 0.6% of the population). But let’s – oh, just for the duration of this column – play along. Let’s imagine that we believe everything Ed is saying, as he leans against his debate lectern like a punter propped up at a jazz bar. Why not humour George Osborne in a biscuit factory, offering crumbs of comfort for those on zero-hour contracts? Here is the brave new world the politicians are promising for us in the next parliament. Tax Yesterday, the Tories announced a five-year “lock” for increases on income tax, VAT and national insurance. There has been a lot of talk of locks this campaign, hasn’t there? The election is virtually groaning with the weight, ready to collapse like the straining Pont des Arts. Even I know this is a ridiculous proposition, and I’m about as good with money as Marie Antoinette. It’s very close to Labour’s manifesto pledge on tax, but makes it statute. First, there’s already an annual finance bill, and second, what is going to happen if the economy falters? There’s similar brazenness in Miliband’s promise to cut the deficit year-on-year. In fact, this election has seen both main parties at loggerheads on the economy, a game of noughts and crosses that neither can win. But, hey, let’s live in their world for just a second – a world of money raining down, like the dome challenge in the Crystal Maze. All copies of The Beatles’ Taxman will be erased and overdubbed with Flying Lizards’ Money; erections of cash will bulge from trouser pockets, while folded purple notes become jacket pocket squares. Health Where I live, in over-subscribed Kentish Town, it takes about half an hour to queue around the corner to get an on-the-day appointment with a GP. Think of the Conservatives’ 1979 Labour Isn’t Working poster, and double that line. You can only imagine, then, my delight at the forthcoming revolution promised by each party’s health policy! First off, Labour is promising us 8,000 extra GPs and 20,000 more nurses! There will be GPs everywhere, like a mis-manufactured Scrabble set. Rather brilliantly, the party’s health strategy is called Time to Care. Which rather suggests nobody cared before. Then there’s the fantastic fact that all of the main parties have pledged to ensure mental health has “parity of esteem” with physical health. I remember hearing this a few months ago, which was a while after I heard it a year or so earlier. Simon Wessely, the president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, has been calling for changes, and fast. And you know who else has? The thousands of people suffering the 8% cut in real terms to mental health trusts during the last parliament. Ukip has promised to find a cure for the common cold But the Lib Dems’ target is to ensure that nobody commits suicide, ever. Who would have thought – decades of psychiatry and psychological research, and all it takes is a man in a yellow tie who once set fire to some cacti! Then there’s cancer. Or the illness formerly known as cancer, given that Ed Miliband has all but vowed to eradicate it. “Cancer tests in every town within a week by 2020” is his stated aim, which, although the subtext reads: “Cancer tests hopefully, in maybe every town, possibly within a week, by approximately 2020,” still seems unrealistic. In other news, Ukip has promised to find a cure for the common cold. Hate crime In an interview with The Muslim News, Miliband swore he would ban Islamophobia if elected. “It will be the first time that the police will record Islamophobic attacks right across the country.” Related: New and old media divided over Miliband's Russell Brand interview He is also keen to tackle other hate crimes, including antisemitism. Miliband has similarly boasted that he would introduce an International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia, before excusing himself from the interview for a breakfast of rainbows sprinkled with hearts. There was no further comment as to whether Miliband believes homophobia and transphobia should be accepted on all other days. But with the backing of David Cameron, who has also been vocal on LGBT rights this campaign (though often forgetting the B and the T), I look forward to being able to kiss my girlfriend on the tube without funny looks in this brave new world. And I can’t wait to sing songs, join hands, and experience the close-quarters love of my fellow man. Kind of like being kettled during a protest, but in a fun way. Education You know, once the party leaders took a break from doing jazz hands to camera lenses with their palms covered in paint, they actually started to address the future of education. At school, as part of detention, I had a teacher who made me draw a full circle in every square of a page of A4 graph paper. Reading the parties’ education manifestos was only slightly more painstaking than that. Farage, of course, is in favour of reinstating grammar schools, preferably with a blanket uniform of purple and yellow. He ignores the potential problems, such as affluent parents paying for private tutoring for exams, or being able to afford to move to catchment areas, allowing for similar advantages to kids attending public schools, eg Dulwich College (don’t mention it! I didn’t go there! It’s not a thing! I had a scholarship! Look at me, I’m drinking a pint! Look at the pint!) Labour, meanwhile, are still banging on about dropping tuition fees from £9,000 to £6,000, as though students should be dirtying the knees of their Levi’s to kneel before them. You know when students will be happy? When they pay the same amount of dosh for their higher education as the majority of politicians serving under the last parliament: a big, fat zero. But let’s not be cynical. The SNP have said that their preference is for no tuition fees in England, and when George Osborne flies, that might be the case. Smaller classes sizes are also being pledged. Like an auction in reverse, the tussling parties’ numbers are getting smaller and smaller. Soon, it will just be one kid, in a class, alone, wondering what he did wrong. I wanna see mortarboards replaced with Snapbacks and kids learning about politics by watching The Thick of It during PSHE lessons. Although, let’s face it, nobody is really listening in class unless Mr. Burton from Educating Yorkshire or the hot Maths professor on Instagram is teaching. I know the parties will do the right thing. Defence Finally, we come to Trident. Nicola Sturgeon – the best wearer of a pastel suit since the Queen – has made her position on nuclear disarmament unequivocal, even if she has toned down the rhetoric in the face of a possible Labour deal. The other parties’ stances, however, are murky as the Scottish waters. Three subs for a continuous at-sea deterrent? Four subs? Three-and-a-half subs, like a toddler insisting on her age? My head tells me to keep Trident, but do you know what this election campaign is telling me? SCRAP TRIDENT. WE ARE GOING TO LIVE IN EDEN. THE WORLD IS GOING TO JOIN HANDS, LIKE MATISSE’S THE DANCE, AND LIVE IN PERFECT HARMONY. Small businesses, who didn’t sign a letter to the Telegraph, will thrive – no more outrage from environment secretary Liz Truss (because “nine-tenths of our pears are imported– and that is a disgrace”). The return of the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker (although the candlestick maker will go out of business because energy prices will be so low). Isis jihadis will fall to their knees, mumbling apologies and sheepishly pushing the sand around with their feet. Houses will be built out of candy canes and chocolate fingers, with little thatched marshmallow roofs, and they will be more affordable than the current 43 homes in London defined as such by Shelter. Politicians truly want us to believe that the next parliament will come up smelling of roses. I believe them! Let’s believe them! I want to. The problem with roses, however, is that they’re full of pricks. |