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Which of the following do you approve of as a manifesto aim?
[Poll #472357]

[The source for these is the tory party manifesto cover, as reported by the BBC here.

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There are 45 comments on this entry. (Reply.)

It's a bit difficult, this poll. For example, I don't know anyone who would say "No, what we need is _dirtier_ hospitals.", but the problem is that, in fact, cleaning the floors will have no impact on MRSA. It's more important that Doctors, Nurses and even visitors wash their hands than it is that the floor is clean.

Of course, general hygiene and a slightly holistic view suggests that cleaning the floor is a good idea.

Similarly, I'm hardly in favour of school indiscipline, but I don't think that the Tories have the right policy (now there's a surprise).

You might not wish to entirely take my posting of this poll at face value ;-)

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*looks confused*

It's a clever satire?

*blinks*

Too clever for me.

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I thought it was intended as you said. Like all well written manifestoes, they're all positive statements that most of the public would agree with. For example, we *already have* controlled immigration. Taking the question at face value (like I did) if you agree with the status quo, then you should tick the box. But reading between the lines, you could answer the question according to whether you agreed with the Conservative policy. Or you could interpret it as "more controlled immigration".

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The point of a front cover is to introduce you to it, surely. The statement "Cleaner hospitals" is a catchphrase/soundbite to get people's interest and to be a very concise summary. Even the Lib Dems, who seem to pride themselves on being the intellectual leftie party, have reduced their campaign to statements like "We oppose X; we propose Y (which means Z)" where X, Y, and Z are all one or two word ideas.

I'd say that if you want to give your answers meaning, you'd have to read the manifesto and all the supporting consulation papers on http://www.conservatives.com/ and then read the question as being "which of the following Conservative policy areas do you agree with them on?"

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Yes, this poll should be titled "DO YOU LONG FOR" ;-)

AIUR!

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On the other hand, I might note that the question you asked isn't necessarily the question that you appear to think you might have asked.

So what is your take on the question? I note that you approve of 'lower taxes' as a manifesto aim. This surprised me. I could say that this was a valid manifesto aim but one with which I disagree (starting from here and reading into it what the Tories think). Aaah therein lies the point. Lower taxes for the poor is a manifesto aim of which I approve therefore I did not answer the question accurately. A reduction in indirect taxes (which have a disproporationate impact on those on lower incomes) would be good too, especially coupled with an increase in taxation for those on higher incomes.

Assumptions are great!

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I approve of lower taxes, however I approve of improved services more…

Similarly I approve of cleaner hospitals, but approve of healthier ones more, etc, etc, etc…

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But as a manifesto aim, surely then you would put improved services over lower taxes and not approve of the lower taxes? Or I am importing too many other things into my scenarios? Or at least more other things than you are. I disapprove of 'lower taxes' in the sense I take the Tories to mean it because that goes hand in hand with worse services AFAICS. This affected how I answered the question!

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OTOH, I might believe that it was possible to improve services and reduce cost.

Also, the government might wish to pursude other funding options (rapine, pillage and murder was a traditional one at one point. Sponsorship might be plausible, or voluntary donation).

And yet again, there is an argument that with lower taxes we'll attract more peeople/companies with high earnings and end up taking in more taxation. I don't personally think our taxes are that high, but I'm not an economist.

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OTOH, I might believe that it was possible to improve services and reduce cost.

Eg. by dismantling expensive things not on the list. One could interpret "lower taxes and improve police and hospitals" as a mealy-mouthed way of saying "abandon our military and roads"...

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A recent economic survey of European multinational companies showed that tax was a bigger barrier to pan-European trade than language barriers. The same survey showed that more than half of non-UK-based European companies choose English law and English jurisdiction for their standard contract terms.

I don't dispute that our taxes are lower than other EU contries - what galls me is that Labour have lied so much about raising them in the first place.

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Goodness. All but two of your correspondents want completely uncontrolled immigration.

I was working on the theory that I could only put six things on this manifesto (because that was all they could put) So I imagined my metal top ten, and ticked any that overlapped...

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Nope, I just don't approve of it as a manifesto aim.

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*nods* I was imagining a manifesto as being a thing where you state your opinion on all major issues, which would include immigration. I'm not sure what I would want to say about immigration, but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be 'completely uncontrolled'.

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My response was two people want to control immigration! Actually that doesn't quite give it accurately. I was assuming a 'more' prior to 'controlled immigration' (and 'better' before school discipline etc).

Still, with the EU, Europeans have the right to come here to work. I dont' see this as a problem, so why should that be restricted to just Europeans?

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*nods* I was assuming that most people were putting in a 'more' and just teasing them a bit for not taking things as literally as me.

I think that if immigration was completely uncontrolled then the population of the UK would rise very quickly, and that would have a considerable negative impact on our standard of living. Are you saying it wouldn't, or that as Christians we ought to put up with it?

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I am not convinced that uncontrolled immigration would lead to a fast rise in the UK population. I'm not convinced that such vast numbers of people are desperate* to come here that reducing immigration controls would open the floodgates as it were. Also, I believe we have a falling birth rate and that there is an argument that we need immigrants to bolster the working population and pay to support all the pensioners there will be when the baby-boomers retire.

Secondly, I am also in favour of helping developing countries which might reduce some of the inequalities which make the UK such an ideal for many.

*Mmm, maybe my comment on

atreic's crime post just now where I said -ance/-ence was my biggest bugbear should be emended to -a-/-e- as I had to check that one!

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Don't get me wrong, I do think we should allow in more immigrants than we currently do - it's just that I don't think it should be completely uncontrolled.

Why would someone have to be 'desperate' to move from one of the many countries where there is no NHS, no social security system and high unemployment to somewhere like the UK? I'd be on a plane the moment I could scrape my fare together.

Or are you advocating a system whereby immigrants are second class citizens with no rights to NHS treatment or social security? I'd much rather let a smaller number of people in and treat them properly once they're here.

I don't think it's a realistic aim to help all developing countries achieve an average standard of living even nearly equivalent to the UK one within the foreseeable future (though obviously it's a long term goal, and much can be done to reduce the inequalities in the mean time.)

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Why would someone have to be 'desperate' to move from one of the many countries where there is no NHS, no social security system and high unemployment to somewhere like the UK? I'd be on a plane the moment I could scrape my fare together.

Sorry, I was using 'desperate' rather laxly in my last comment. I was using it merely as a strongish qualifier and not particularly connected to despair, i.e. people are extremely keen.

I think you are in a minority though. Yes, the NHS, Social Security and high unemployment are attractive but I think that there are also many things which tie people to where they're from (not least family) and so whilst many people might talk about coming here, they might not actually go through with it if they got the opportunity. Equally, they might come and work here for a few years and then go back.

I am certainly not advocating treating immigrants as second class citizens.

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I'm sure I am in a minority. A tiny minority. However, if 0.01% of the 2.8 billion people living in poverty came to live here it would increase our population by almost 50%, which would clearly be unsustainable.

While many would stay put because of family ties, others would want to bring their family over, which would make things worse, not better.

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I've just done a quick google and failed to find any research or information on what percentage of people in poorer countries would choose to move to the west if they could.

I wonder if anyone's ever tried to find out? And how it varies between countries & continents.

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No - I haven't found anything either. It would be interesting.

But since a surprisingly high number are willing to seriously risk their lives getting here illegally, even though they won't be able to get a job or social security and will be in constant danger of being sent back, I think that if the journey was (almost) risk-free and they were assured of the same employment and benefit rights as you or I, then the numbers coming over would be overwhelming.

At least one person I know who lived in a developing country for a while had an old woman she scarcely knew begging her to marry her son (who she'd never even met) so that he could get British citizenship. And I've heard other similar anecdotes from other (non-anti-immigration) sources.

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I think we ought to put up with it.

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To what extent? I believe that if we unilaterally opened our borders today, it would soon become necessary to destroy much of our countryside building housing to accomodate everyone and to abolish the NHS and the welfare state, as well as tolerating huge taxes, increased unemployment and astronomical house prices. And of course there would be a resulting increase in racism and intolerance as people would blame the newcomers (as opposed to the government) for their new problems.

I don't like the idea of discriminating against people for not being British, but I prefer it to the idea of destroying everything I love about this country, particularly when moderately controlled immigration (i.e. letting in more economic migrants than we do now) would actually be beneficial.

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I'm not sure how to manage the practicalities - I just think it's immoral for us to turn people away.

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I don't disagree. But I think that some of 'the practicalities' that would be necessary - abolishing the NHS, for instance - would be even more immoral. It's a matter of choosing the lesser of two evils.

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Presumably the assumption that it would be necessary to abolish the NHS is based on a further assumption that most of the new arrivals would be unemployed. I'm not sure how true that is, given the frequent complaints about skill shortages. I'd be interested to see a rigorous economic analysis of the issues, except that I probably wouldn't have time to read it *sigh*

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As

ixwin said, I'd mostly be interested in some proper research on how many people would come to Britain if we unilaterally opened our borders. I really suspect that it would be too many for us to house and employ even when you take into account the existing skill shortage and the extra jobs created by the increase in populations.

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What's wrong with uncontrolled immigration? Let the market solve the problems (at least that would be consistent with general policy elsewhere)

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I don't think I'm very keen on 'the market'. And 'consistency' is overrated.

Is what you're saying that if we let everyone into Britain who wanted to come, then eventually the standard of living would decline so much that no-one would want to any more? If so, I can't see who that would benefit. If not, what are you saying?

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Or alternativelty the standard of living in other places might improve such that they don't wish to leave / wish to travel to different places.

Of course, it's hardly an unconstrained market if only Britain has free immigration. If other countries also opened up their borders then you might find more Britains emigrating than people moving in to take their place.

There is also an argument based on "personal freedoms" to consider.

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Or alternativelty the standard of living in other places might improve such that they don't wish to leave / wish to travel to different places.

That's obviously something to aim for, and once it happens then of course immigration should be uncontrolled. I can't see it happening in my lifetime, however, and I don't think that uncontrolled immigration would be a good idea until it does.

I don't know what would happen if everywhere opened their borders... I still think Britain would get very overcrowded. It's irrelevant, however - this discussion is about manifesto aims, and manifestos are based on how things are, not how things would be if all the other countries in the world started behaving completely differently.

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Ahh, but my argument is that more porous borders would help to achieve the more-equal state of affairs elsewhere.

Of course, in practice, I doubt any government would suddenly turn immigration controls off – you'd have a phased lessening, and opportunity to reexamine the process.

On the other hand I can imagine governments going for quite large steps in strengthening of border controls.

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Ahh, but my argument is that more porous borders would help to achieve the more-equal state of affairs elsewhere.

Yes - that could work. But I don't think that Britain (or even Europe) unilaterally opening its borders would do any good.

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Or believe that immigration policy should be decided at a European rather than national level (and is therefore not an appropriate aim for a national government manifesto).

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Yes... although the question didn't specify that it was a 'national government manifesto' - I would interpret it as being about what you would want to see on whatever manifesto you felt appopriate - national, European or local, rather than a question about which manifesto you do feel is appropriate for each issue.

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What I find funny is the four who don't want any of them!

Fewer police, more taxes, dirtier hospitals... ;-)

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One rule of thumb for political promises and statements is that you should totally ignore them if it would be completely absurd for any politician to say the opposite. So, a promise of "accountability" is, at least in a modern democracy, essentially meaningless, as no party would every promise to be less accountable. Likewise "We will listen to the people of Britain." "We will tell the people of Britain the truth." and so on, that Kilroy-Silk was blethering on about. If they say they will be "accountable", you need to know in what specific ways they will be more accountable.

On the other hand, some of these manifesto promises are meaningful, in that it would be possible to disagree with them, and indeed I do disagree with some of them. For example, I support, ideally, free movement of peoples, and I certainly do not support more controlled immigration, which is essentially what the promise means. I'm not against more police, but I'm not sure it's the best use of resources, even from the point of view of reducing crime.

As has been said, you also need to look at how they're proposing to achieve the things they promise, like cleaner hospitals and better school discipline, though I presume they do inside. You can't really expect a front cover to go much further, so on that score the Tory front cover doesn't score too badly in terms of actually making non-empty statements, whether or not one agrees with them.

Well said.

(I'm reminded heavily of the infamous "anti-sleaze candidate" -- what was his opponent supposed to say :))

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I take it you are referring to Martin Bell? Well Neil Hamilton was a bit boxed in by the media frenzy, and it didn't help that he was the kind of person the media could make so much of. Since then, CCHQ has been much harsher in ditching candidates who balls it up, no matter how late in the campaign it is.

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Of course, approving of them as an aim, and actually trusting the tories to deliver are very different things.

October