Written on 17 Nov 2011
As I've mentioned in other Afterthoughts pages, I’m in the process of digitising my earliest diaries for posterity and amongst them I recently came across extracts from the election manifestos of the three main parties. Just for fun, I attach 185 words copied verbatim from each of the three (must be fair!) See if you can guess which General Election they were written for and which party used the title of this post as their election slogan.
Labour. The country is facing another General Election. We ask our fellow citizens to assert in their free exercise of the franchise that by and large the Labour Government has served the country well. The task now is to carry the nation through to complete recovery. That will mean continued, mighty efforts from us all. The choice for the electors is between the Labour Party – the party of positive action, of constructive progress, the true party of the nation – and the Conservative Party – the party of outdated ideas, of unemployment, of privilege. Finance must be the servant and not the master of employment policy. Public ownership of the Bank of England has enabled the Government to control monetary policy. Subject to the will of Parliament, we shall take whatever measures may be required to control financial forces, so as to maintain full employment and promote the welfare of the nation. No trade union movement in the world has such a proud record as the British. With unexampled restraint and loyalty, it has co-operated to hold wages steady through these difficult years.
Conservative. The Socialists promised that they would make the people of Britain masters of their economic destiny. Nothing could be more untrue. Every forecast has proved grossly over-optimistic. Every crisis has caught them unawares. A complete change is needed. Only the Conservative Party can make this change. The Socialist Government are temporising with grave economic perils. Britain’s difficulties will not be resolved by some trick of organisation, nor will prosperity come as a gift from government. The nation will enjoy in benefit only as much as it is prepared to create by its own effort. With a high spirit, through great endeavours, relying on our native skill, every man and woman must bend their energies to a new wave of national impulse. Only thus can the British people save themselves now and win lasting prosperity for the future. The true value of money must be honestly maintained. The crushing burden of public expenditure must be drastically reduced. All who cherish the cause of our country at this fateful moment must cast their vote after hard and long thought, and make sure they cast it effectively.
Liberal. We believe that our Party is more likely to unite the nation than either the Conservatives or the Socialists – locked as they are in what is really a class struggle. Britain has been brought close to bankruptcy by the effects of two wars, continued world disunity, and aid to friends abroad. The only tried system of completely fair representation according to the voting strength of Parties is through Proportional Representation by the single transferable vote. The present system is not even faintly equitable. We are anxious to reform the composition of the House of Lords, so as to eliminate heredity as a qualification for membership, which should be available to men and women of distinction. We wish to restore the authority of Parliament and the status of its individual Members by reversing the trend towards supreme Executive power. Old Age pensioners who wish to go on working are performing a great public service, and a Liberal Government would revoke the Means Test on the working pensioner. We would also assess war pensions on the merits of the individual case, not on the basis of service rank.
Those manifestos were for the 1950 General Election. Nothing much changes, does it? Folk of my age, or political historians, will probably be the only ones to recognise that the title of this page was the Labour Party slogan for its 1950 General Election manifesto.