June 29, 2009
Gordon Brown is laying out the government's "draft legislative programme" in the Commons as I write this.
In amongst all his exciting and of course visionary plans is "a guarantee for one-to-one personal tutors for children at primary and secondary schools".
Yep. One tutor per pupil, he reckons.
That is on top of the many other equally wild and ludicrous pledges - god I hate that word - he's making too.
This on a day when Mandleson has casually said a figure wouldn't be able to be put on the Government's spending plans until after the next general election.
Which is when they'll almost certainly be out of Government.
So not only is Brown effectively starting the general election run-up early with what is effectively Labour's latest manifesto of lies and unattainable hopes, he's doing it without admitting what he'll spend - and more importantly where he'll have to cut spending, and massively - knowing that the whole thing is a bomb he's leaving behind to blow up under - most probably - David Cameron.
They're funny with their manifestos, Labour.
Twelve years after "education, education, education" they're still trying to find ways to get kids reading.
There was never the promised referendum on the European Constitution - instead the name was changed to "Lisbon Treaty" and then said with straight faces that it was something different.
And there was the partial ban on smoking in establishments that served food that the moment they got re-elected got changed to a blanket ban, ruining thousands and thousands of businesses overnight and many more since (see Redleader for more details...)
At a time when they say they want to clean up Parliament's finances, why bother spending a fortune preparing this legislative programme, half of which they know will never come to fruition?
Gordon Brown can promise as many things as he likes. Maybe two teachers for every pupil - perhaps four.
The fact is, he and his lickspittle cronies won't be around when it has to be explained that he can't do any of these things after all.
So why not just give us an election now?
