Gordon Brown has kicked off the election campaign by claiming he will 'fight for Britain '. This will have a few people choking over their corn flakes. After all, isn't this the same Gordon Brown who prevented us having a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty which handed over control of Britain to our friends in Brussels? And isn't this the same Gordon Brown who was apparently so embarrassed at his Lisbon Treaty sell-out that he avoided having his photo taken with the other EU leaders at the signing ceremony?
But our prime minister's new-found resolve to 'fight for Britain ' is not the only empty commitment he has given us over the years. In fact, when trying to compile a list Gordon Brown's greatest broken promises, we really are spoilt for choice - there have been so many. Moreover, each of us will have their favourites. Although a lot of people will disagree with my selection, I've decided to have a go at picking my Top Ten. http://www.dubaixpats.com/
At Number One must be Brown's commitment that his prudent economic management would put an end to what he called 'Tory boom and bust'. This was repeated more than a hundred times in the House of Commons and almost innumerable times in media interviews. For fairly obvious reasons, our PM doesn't mention this any more.
Second place might go to Brown's repeated pledge that he would provide British troops with the proper equipment. In one parliamentary questions time, our prime minister tried to weasel-word his way out of trouble by insisting that the deaths of several soldiers on foot patrol the previous weekend had nothing to do with a lack of helicopters. Given that they were on foot patrol, it was fairly obvious their deaths could not be blamed on insufficient helicopters. However in making this statement, Brown seemed to forget that the deaths of over a hundred British soldiers killed by roadside bombs could have been avoided had more helicopters been available.
Third we should probably put a truly massive whopper - Brown's promise of a referendum on the EU Constitution/Lisbon Treaty.
At Four is a true classic - his commitment to 'British jobs for British workers'. This was a promise he never had any way of fulfilling. Firstly because anyone from the other twenty six EU countries could come and go at will. And secondly because his government's deliberate policy of swamping us with almost uncontrolled immigration has led to British workers finding their jobs being taken by new arrivals willing to work for less money.
Brown also promised us lots of cleaning up. So at Number Five, let's put MPs' expenses. Brown recently told us, 'The first thing we've got to do is to clean up politics once and for all'. Since then, he's been doing all he can to protect his own thieving ministers and to avoid any reforms of MPs' expenses. They weren't even mentioned in the latest Queen's Speech. Meanwhile the grasping Lords have just been allowed to change their expenses system so that even blatant fraud is now within the new rules.
He also committed to cleaning up banking. So at Number Six we could have, 'As a condition for putting taxpayers' money into banks, we must also take action to end the old short-term bonus culture'. Given that our bankers are currently awarding themselves a bonus tsunami paid for with our money, it seems this promise too was just sound with no substance.
At Number Seven, we might put Brown's promise that Labour would be 'wise spenders, not big spenders'. For the first two years of his chancellorship, Brown kept to his manifesto pledge to hold spending at the level proposed by the previous (Tory) government and was able to repay some of our national debt as tax revenues exceeded public spending. But from 2000 onwards he really let rip, doubling public spending and dishing out more every year than the government collected in tax. So, each year our debt levels shot up leaving us hopelessly exposed when the recession hit and tax revenues collapsed.
Number Eight could go to his pledge 'to advance to a Britain of full employment within our generation'. Over two and a half million people are out of work and another two and a half million are on disability benefits - the highest rate of supposedly disabled people in the western world. Or else we might choose his commitment to provide training or a job for every young person which has curiously resulted in Britain having the highest level of NEETS (young people not in education, employment or training) in our history.
The Number Nine position is taken by his promise to reduce bureaucracy in the NHS so that more money could go to frontline services. This has given us a doubling in the number of managers from 20,000 to 40,000 so we now have more managers than medical consultants (39,000). Moreover, we have lost so many hospital beds that when New Labour were first elected we had over 12 beds per manager - this has now fallen to just over 4 beds per manager.
And finally at Number Ten there is his commitment to reduce paperwork to get more police out on the beat. Yet the government's own measures show that the police now spend more time on paperwork and less time preventing crime than ever before.
Recently Brown promised to curb the culture of excess in public-sector salaries, to clamp down on benefits fraud, to control housing benefits and to make the public sector deliver more for less. That anyone could take any of these pledges seriously is almost beyond belief. Yet, as the opinion polls show a single-figures gap between the two main parties, one lesson is clear - you should never underestimate the stupidity of the British voter.
David Craig is the author of "Fleeced! How we've been betrayed by the politicians, bureaucrats and bankers" (Constable 2009), "The Great European Rip-Off" (Random House 2009) and "Squandered: How Gordon Brown is wasting over one trillion pounds of our money" (Constable 2007). You can find out more about his books or contact him athttp://www.snouts-in-the-trough.com.
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