I have posted this short video this morning. In it, I argue that all our political parties are selling us shorty by claiming that they are supplying 'fully-costed' manifestos at this election, and so far, none of them have even come close to doing so. In that case "show us your workings" is a reasonable demand to make.
The transcript is:
All the political parties are claiming that they are presenting ‘fully-costed' manifestos at the upcoming general election.
No, they're not. That's nonsense. I've looked at some of the manifestos that have already been offered, and they're offering some workings, but without any explanation as to how they come to some amazingly large numbers.
For example, the Liberal Democrats have a figure for £7. 2 billion that they're going to recover from tackling tax avoidance and tax evasion. Now I don't dispute that that is possible, particularly if, as they say, they're going to spend £1 billion extra on staffing at HM Revenue and Customs. But I still don't know how they got to the number because they don't show their workings.
I'm sure that everybody watching this video did at some time suffer a maths lesson where a teacher said to them “show your workings” because that's the way you'll get the marks, and that's true of our political parties.
Unless they show their workings, their costings are meaningless.
So, give us your workings.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
Sorry Sir, the dog ate my workings.
or
I threw the fag packet away.
The problem with “show us your workings” is that this would lead to people raising questions – can’t have that. The point is, UK serfs that are willing to accept, perhaps passively, the statements of their betters.
Note that word – statements – which is what the “fully costed propaganda” is. A statement & a form of entertainment.
John Cooper, the Scottish Conservative candidate in Dumfries and Galloway is fighting the election solely to fight the SNP on independence, while arguing in effect that Scotland is already independent. This is how the Conservatives are fighting in Scotland.
The SNP is independent already, and has wasted all the money it receives from Westminster; and Westminster and the Conservatives have lavishly funded Scotland; money which is all wasted. Cooper wants to be elected to Westminster, but he wants to say nothing at all about the failure of the Conservative Government. Scotland’s problems have nothing to do with Westminster. He speaks to the Dumfries electorate on the doorstep, and nobody is interested in Boris Johnson or Liz Truss; or anything in Westminster. The SNP is at fault for absolutely everything, whether or not they are responsible for it.
There is a comic absurdity to all this, but it is standard fare for the Scottish Conservatives; it can only happen because the Scottish media has long encouraged just this nonsense in Scotland to prevail for decades. Cooper is a journalist; and an Alister Jack (Scottish Secretary in Westminster) Spad. There is a comic masterpiece in itself.
Sad, John, but I’m guessing he’ll get away with it. 🙁
I suspect they can’t really show their workings though, as the base data is often highly selective. It really is fully costed but self serving propaganda.
The whole notion of a fully costed programme dies on the cross of guesswork and dodgy data, and even more on very narrow base assumptions, only one of which needs to be wrong to throw an entire set of calculations, as any fule kno, let alone the statistically numerate.
The numbers game seems more to serve media obsessions, and they have already been captured by neoliberal hegemony.
No wonder dissatisfaction with the way the UK is governed is pushing 80%.
Worse still, it is all predicated on being able to place a money value on everything.
The ‘cost’ of a road death in the UK is currently placed at £1.9m.
Is that just the cost to the economy, or do we equate that with the actual value of a life ?
There is a not only a financial multiplier effect, conspicuously ignored by such as the IFS, but also a social multiplier effect in terms of wellbeing.
And how do we compare investing in infrastructure with investing in people ?
How might a 30sec journey time saving from a new bypass equate with training nurses ?
What is the real value of investing in people’s welfare, health and education ?
Whatever happened to the underlying value of a public good ?
That is the real why? of politics.
We just don’t seem to discuss the priorities of real people.
And these are not all reducible to self interest.
The dumping of Surestart was a particularly egregious cut, yet was then deemed an economic benefit by ONS in terms of ‘savings’.
Fourteen years later we realise that its value was ignored as the real worth was long term, and difficult to evaluate, nor on a politically useful timescale.
The UK might be the 6th largest economy yet has fallen to 20th in the 2024 global happiness index. (The USA doesn’t even reach the top 20)
I can only make a plea for a more value driven politics, one predicated on the welfare of UK citizens, and not as slaves to some shoogly economic metrics.
Only that way can we escape the stranglehold of neoliberalism. But … for what ?
Even on the distant political horizon I still barely see a trace of smoke from an honest political debate and practical goals that are based on the actual welfare and well being of Britain’s people and environment.
“Show your workings”.
It isn’t going to happen. They never do. GERS makes no sense (the consolidated UK GERS is never shown, never mind anything of the detailed calculations), and the workings have never been presented, and never will be. You produce the workings, and you will be found out.
Just make it up. After all, they have been winning elections with this rubbish – forever.
I wish you weren’t right so often, John.
I’ve written to Shona Robison (Scottish Finance & Economy Secretary) with a cc to John Swinney asking why they continue to make a rod for their own back by publishing GERS, and is there anything in Statute (or any other governmental instruction) that makes publication of GERS mandatory? I’ve done this in the past and got a polite brush-off and I don’t expect much to change this time either, but I’d love to be proven wrong.
Keep us posted Ken, or we will go through this all again in August
This is Catch-22. Refuse to produce it, and the Unionists will be lining up to say the Scottish government is hiding something. That will not go down well with the Scottish public. QED.
That was how Devolution was set up. Westminster produced devolution because it had no choice; but it did choose how it was done. It wasn’t designed to serve Scotland, it was designed carefully to achieve two objectives only:
1) Dish the Nats
2) Protect Westminster’s absolute control, preferably with nobody noticing.
@John S Warren
Hmmm… My impression is that the ‘why’ of Scottish (and Welsh) devolution was because it went along with N.Irish devolution as an attempt to fob-off the ‘Irish Problem’. It was never intended to actually devolve any responsibility or self determination. Son of Thatcher done good in this way – a real chip off the old block.