April 1: Election pledges that David Cameron failed to keep

BEFORE the last election, David Cameron made this pledge in an interview with Jeremy Paxman: “We have absolutely no plans to raise VAT.” George Osborne, in the first Budget of this Government, raised VAT from 17.5 to 20 per cent.

David Cameron said in 2008: “The Government should say not just there is a presumption you will be prosecuted if you carry a knife, but that there will be a presumption you will go to jail.” What has this Government done about this great danger to the public since they came to power? Nothing, not a thing, zilch. There is still no presumption that anyone carrying a knife or any other blade will be jailed.

A month before the 2010 election Michael Gove, who became Education Secretary, said: “Ed Balls keeps saying that we are committed to scrapping the EMA. I have never said this. We won’t.” The EMA is a grant that was paid to the poorest 16- to 19-year-olds in further education, which was scrapped after the last election.

Nothing needs to be said about the NHS; everyone knows the Tories’ record on this, rip apart, privatise, underfund it and just let it die, like many of the patients in the NHS queues. Another term for Cameron and cronies and there won’t be any pieces left to pick up of the NHS.

But nothing was going to stop this Government from wasting £50bn on its HS2 scheme. I would like to know in what way this is warranted. This is money that should be spent on defence and health – certainly not another ‘white elephant’.

From: T Marston, Lincoln.

THE Tory hymn sheet is putting it about that the election is really just a choice between Ed Miliband and David Cameron for Prime Minister for the next five years. Not so.

Cameron has said he does not want a third term – so, even if he is the next prime minister, he will have to give a would-be successor a chance in the driving seat before 2020. Even in office, leaders come and go – and so might Miliband, as did Eden.

In a mature democracy, electors elect the candidate with the policies best suited for the needs of the nation, not for a section of it. By contrast in our democracy, it would appear that to be elected you must look more “celebrity” than your opponent. So it does not matter what the Government does as long as they look good doing it?

From the outset (ie Walpole) a Prime Minister was said to be “the first among equals”. He didn’t have to be a star.

There was a music hall joke put about in the days of Prime Minister Attlee (1945-51) that an empty taxi drew up and the Prime Minister got out.

Attlee was ineffective at public relations and lacked charisma but, as first among equals in the post-war cabinet, his government implemented the Beveridge Report, reducing poverty through a welfare state; resurrected the railways, devastated by war; created the NHS; set up a system of pensions and benefits; built one million houses in six years; carried through the 1944 Education Act; presided over full employment while living standards rose by 10 per cent per annum; and the economy grew by 3 per cent.

All this was achieved against a back drop of post-war austerity. In 2004 Attlee was voted the greatest British Prime Minister of the 20th Century by a poll of 139 academics organised by IpsosMORI. No one considered his skill with a bacon sandwich as relevant to leading a Cabinet.

From: John Lowcock, Sheffield.

A NEW, unendearing, anti-Ukip tactic by Labour is to claim that the party is Thatcherite. This is arrant nonsense.

I invite readers to read Ukip policies before believing any of this pap. Some members fought against Thatcherism and are deeply offended by one more untruth.

If people were to check out Ukip policies carefully they would probably be forming the new government in May.

From: Terry Palmer, South Lea Avenue, Hoyland, Barnsley.

WE are now being bombarded with promises of Utopia, especially from the ‘major’ parties, begging for our 
votes.

So... who should we vote for at the General Election?

Well if you agree with no change on immigration, with a continuation of open borders to the EU, the continuation of spending and borrowing and the increasing of our national debt, continuing with cuts to our Armed Forces, cuts to the NHS, continuing with membership of the rotten and corrupt EU and that we keep spending money on foreign aid which also helps to keep propping up foreign governments etc, then you should vote Tory, Labour or Lib
Dem.

If you disagree with the above, then I suggest you should vote Ukip.

From: Terry Duncan, Graeme Road, Bridlington, 
East Yorkshire.

QUESTIONED by Jeremy Paxman, on TV, David Cameron indirectly admitted that his employment figures are based on enticing people to take up jobs on below minimum weekly wages, and the Tory Government borrowed more than its predecessor!

What an indictment of subterfuge.