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Here come the bribes


With the mother of all messy elections now a mere two months away it’s the time to sit back and take stock. Really think about the options presented to us as voters, weigh up what the parties stand for, how it chimes with our beliefs, or not, as the case may be.

Or, alternatively, now is the time to tot up which party is offering us the heftiest bribes, and vote accordingly.

We’ve come a long way since the wild west days of parliament’s infancy. Back then, bribery for votes, a practice known as “treating”, was commonplace. None of that sort thing now, of course. Shabby, demeaning and corrupt. Wouldn’t want anything like that damaging the good name of parliament (stop laughing at the back). However, whilst bunging an individual a quid for their vote is strictly verboten, attempting to do the same thing to entire demographics is de rigeur. How else to explain the boy Miliband’s promise to knock large swathes of squids off the cost of tuition fees? Is it done from political conviction, or is it a big fat bribe aimed squarely at the parents of students (and their offspring – how Labour would love the student population to get out of bed and vote, it’d be a landslide). Considering that applications to universities are actually up, in the teeth of tuition fees, it’s hard to see this as anything other than trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist. But it’s a nice, neat headline-grabber, and, of course, prompts the memories of a few wavering Lib Dems.

Whilst Ed’s efforts could generously be interpreted as down to actual conviction (if you close one eye and squint hard enough), it’s hard to see what the Tories have come up with as anything other than naked vote buying. Tory policy wonks have sat down, some genius has gone “wait a minute! Old people vote! And there’s loads of them!” and thus a raft of pensioner-friendly titbits comes floating down the fiscal stream, all the perks remain: winter fuel allowance, tv licences etc, even if those receiving it are rich enough to buy Berkshire. The pensioner bonds, whereby the older get to save at preferential rates to the young, are the biggest up yours to the vast majority of the population imaginable. Looked at baldly, they simply state that this section of the population gets to do something you don’t. That you are legally barred from. The generation which has been acknowledged as having pretty much the best rub of the green as regards employment, house prices, ability to save and wages relative to costs now gets the added bonus of being able to save their money at a higher interest rate than those younger. Not old? Go fuck yourself. Hilariously, Cambo dresses this up with some pious drivel about this being the generation that “fought wars”. Which conveniently ignores the fact that you can be born in the fifties and be a pensioner. Not too many foetuses fighting the Nazis, I imagine, sure we’d have read about that.

It’s pretty horrible across the board, and it’s depressing that the parties view the election in terms of targetable demographics, rather than, y’know, everyone. But if you can’t beat them, join them, so as the day nears, I’m going to attempt to get in the ear of policy-makers at each party, convince them that the largest tranche of undecided voters consists of grumpy chefs and frustrated writers in their late thirties. I await the introduction of a Personal Wine Allowance with interest.

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