Does the political manifesto still matter?

As he broke his central 2019 commitment not to raise taxes the Prime Minister pleaded in exculpation that a global pandemic was also not in the manifesto. Following time-honoured advice never to let a good crisis go to waste, the government is now behaving as if Covid has given it licence to abandon the promises made to voters in 2019 on a “that was then, this is now” basis.

Johnson’s manifesto-busting has provoked outrage, as he must have expected. His earlier break with the 0.7 per cent foreign aid GDP target confirmed the worst suspicions of those who had never liked, trusted or voted for him. His admirers and loyal supporters stayed largely silent then, as he road-tested his excuse of blaming the pandemic for the state of the nation’s finances. 

This week the tables were turned. Putting up tax for the NHS and social care might even woo back some of the university town liberal elite the Tories feared lost forever to the Left of Centre. The most poisonous denunciations have been led instead by the Telegraph newspaper which has hitherto been Johnson’s most enthusiastic fanzine and sometimes paymaster. The Prime Minister stands accused of sounding the death knell of not just Thatcherism but the Conservative party as well.

For all the hand-wringing and anger the bulk of Conservative MPs went in the opposite direction to the Torygraph’s editorialists; only five of them voted against the measure and none of the unnamed Cabinet ministers who had been busy briefing against putting up National Insurance walked out when confronted with Johnson’s decision. 

Since self-interest comes first for every active MP, they must reckon, all things considered, breaking manifesto promises may not be such a big deal after all. 

There are two popular examples of the dreadful electoral fate which befalls proven manifesto liars from either side of the Atlantic. The Liberal Democrats were all but annihilated in 2015, having gone against their key promise in 2010 not to put up university fees. George Bush senior built his 1988 campaign around the theatrical soundbite, “read my lips, no new taxes”. Taxes went up once he was in the White House and Bush was trounced in the next election by Bill Clinton, “Slick Willy”, who was hardly celebrated himself for adherence to the truth.

Nick Clegg and Bush both helped deliver something which they had specifically promised not to do. This should not augur well for Johnson who has similarly done something which he promised not to do. Voters are more likely to punish acts of commission than of omission. They are not idiots and know from experience that airy positive promises of a perfect world by the end of the term will not happen.  

But Johnson has more in common with Clinton than with either Clegg or Bush. He avoids self-righteousness. From the moment his words leave his mouth nobody is ever quite sure if he means them. His recourse to colourful and exaggerated language reinforces his unreliable ambiguity. 

Bush was anxious not to be exposed for his inconsistencies. His pledge was an attempt to expunge earlier behaviour. In 1980, he ran unsuccessfully against Ronald Reagan, dismissing tax-cutting, small state Reaganomics as “Voodoo Economics”. After eight years as Reagan’s Vice President, he was protesting too much that he was now a true believer. 

There was also an air of sanctity around the Lib Dems. Their candidates didn’t just shove a line in their election booklet, they rose to the challenge from the National Union of Students and signed a public “pledge to vote against any increase in fees in the next parliament”. Nick Clegg thought it was a mistake at the time but signed nonetheless, only to break his pledge to demonstrate his loyalty to the Coalition government in which he served as David Cameron’s deputy. 

It is not Johnson’s style to get hung up on detail, difficulties or delivery. He says what feels sounds right at the time. No one familiar with him can possibly expect him to stick to his word. There are too many instances of his contradicting himself or simply ignoring what he said earlier, as he has shown once again with the 2019 manifesto. The mood and feelings he generates are more important than the strict factual accuracy of what he says or writes. 

Until now UK governments have had a comparatively good record for keeping manifesto promises. For their book on the subject, The Age of Promises, two Exeter University academics put the UK top in recent years for election pledges fully fulfilled. Only Sweden joins us scoring above 70 per cent; the rest, including the United States, struggle to reach 50 per cent. Researchers at Manchester University have a complementary analysis, suggesting that a good score doesn’t always benefit the incumbent government. By 2017, Theresa May’s government had fulfilled 175 out of the 257 specific offers in the Conservatives 2015 manifesto. But while box-ticking, May failed to deliver on four of the most important promises contingent on the commitment Cameron honoured to hold an EU membership referendum – leaving the EU, the single market and the customs union and reducing net migration to below 100,000. 

The direction of travel can be as important as getting there and the May Government was going nowhere. A further error on May’s part in the 2017 election campaign was being too specific. Her detailed plan to pay for social care was picked apart and thrown on the scrap heap before voting took place. Even after intentionally grasping the nettle of Social Care, Johnson remains vague on the detail of how much money is going where and what precisely it will pay for. 

Manifestos used to be the centrepiece of election campaigns. They were launched as “menus with prices” early on and were examined in detail for weeks by expert journalists at daily news conferences. 

Surviving this trial was an important test of the New Labour government’s readiness for government in 1997. For years afterwards the Deputy Prime Minister was still brandishing his battered card listing the five pledges, including smaller class sizes, shorter NHS waiting lists, and more jobs and fast-track punishment for young people. A windfall tax on privatised utilities, then widely derided as profiteering fat cats, was put in print. The tax pledge sounded similar but left more wriggle room than the Conservatives flat out rejection of rises in 2019: “No rise in income tax rates, cut VAT on heating to 5%, and interest rates and inflation as low as possible.” 

Labour used their 1997 manifesto to build credibility and reassure the electorate. Blair and Brown had to dispel the popular truism that the “Labour always put up taxes”. Johnson’s Conservatives do not have to fight this liability. 

In the years since Blair’s first landslide, party strategists on all sides have treated manifestos more cautiously, fearing that they will generate too many hostages to fortune. In 2020, Donald Trump didn’t even adopt “a platform” for the Republican Party; his pitch was basic and personalized – effectively, “Look at me, vote Trump, you know what you are going to get”. He nearly won. 

The parties here now publish their manifestos late on in the campaign. There are no open daily news conferences or extended interviews. Launches are pointedly staged far from Westminster, supposedly taking the election to “real people” but implying too that what the ‘pointy-heads” think doesn’t really matter. Johnson took this to extremes, unveiling his slogan-embossed manifesto, “Get Brexit Done. Unleash Britain’s potential”, in Nowheresville, on a Sunday Afternoon. In this characteristic atmosphere of contrived spontaneous chaos, he gave no hint that he would be precious about the details of his message. 

And so it has turned out. His manifesto pledges are for the day they are unveiled and not for changed circumstances. 

Raising taxes deprives the Conservatives of what has been their core message for a generation. Things may not improve as much as Johnson suggests, although he is careful to avoid cast iron promises, preferring to talk in bright generalities such as “levelling up”. One day the electorate may tire of it all and turn to more sober alternatives. That day has not yet come. 

The mood, for now, is epitomized in a throwaway tweet on the day of the Prime Minister’s announcement by Robert Peston of ITV News: “COVID was not in the (Tory election) manifesto. Shame. Presumably it would never have happened if it had been. Boom boom.”