It is often said that "politics is the art of the possible", and we all know that blunt truths are not vote winners. Politicians make all kinds of promises before an election, and then rip off their masks the moment it is over, and the dogs are unleashed. But I have been wondering, has this constant telling the public what they want to hear gone too far? With the "VAT on private schools thing", it's actually refreshing to hear a policy likely to be unpopular with many people being mentioned before the election, instead of being brought in by stealth later. It may of course be a red herring, a distraction, and the tip of the iceberg of nasty things that Starmer might do if he gets in, but it's being mentioned now. Sunak made pledges which he knew were untenable, such as "stop the boats", and Rwanda: he knew it was untenable, we knew, he knew that we knew. When Tony Blair's government brought in tuition fees soon after being elected, was there any mention of it before the election?
Take the way Boris Johnson handled Covid, with his desperate desire to be liked, and he wasn't even fighting an election then. He went from the crowd-pleasing "the virus is nothing to worry about" to "twelve weeks of our magic lockdown, and we can send the virus packing". He swore to "do whatever it takes" to beat the virus. He said "normalish by Christmas, significant normality by Easter", knowing that both were unrealistic. Then it was "vaccines will stop transmission, if only everybody takes them". Because of all this, people looked to him as a god who would save them from the nasty virus. Furlough was sold as a generous measure which would help everybody, with no costs at all; if you ticked the right boxes, and while the magic money tree bears fruit. Nick Gibb (schools minister) said "no child will be disadvantaged in their education as a result of lockdown". Yeah, right.
If the government had instead said "we cannot beat the virus, we can only lessen the harms", and spoken frankly that the cures of lockdown and furlough would come with regrettable and tremendous costs, I would have had far more respect for lockdown, and for the man himself. But because he kept trying to please everybody, he ended up pleasing nobody, apart from his rich mates. Even now, both parties are in total denial about the damage caused by lockdown, as if they have made a pact to each other not to mention it. Sunak's "five pledges" bore no fruit, but if he had said "I have a difficult job to rebuild after my government's extremely damaging lockdowns", there might be more respect for him.
Is it time to abandon the model of political spin, which makes politicians look good in the short term, but then comes crashing down in spectacular fashion when the mask falls off, and for them to say the unpopular stuff out loud?