Saturday 2 April 2016

Do Bland Slogans Mean A Bland Campaign?

There me looking at the Welsh Assembly  campaign launch and thinking on blogging  about it when John Dixon over at Borthlas does exactly what I wanted to point.

As he writes 



When the scriptwriters of VEEP coined the phrase ‘Continuity with Change’, they were actually seeking the most meaningless political phrase they could come up with. Little did they imagine that any politician would ever use anything similar for real. Never overestimate a politician.As the Welsh general election campaign struggles into some semblance of life, no doubt we can expect to hear many other meaningless slogans bandied around. But who can be the blandest of them all?
The Lib Dems have bolted into an early lead this week with “Our priorities are your priorities” and “Putting People First” (as if any political party would ever come forward and say that they were going to put people last). I really wish that I could say that I was not expecting keen competition from the others to trump the Lib Dems in the coming weeks…
Mind you I suppose you could argue that the Lib Dem are right in that their Ppriorities are our priorities ,


You may have noticed that I have tended to refer to Welsh Lib Dem Leader as  La Pasionaria   However I wonder how even she can light a fire in our hears with the above.

Writing on Freedom Central she says.


At the launch of our Assembly election campaign in Aberystwyth yesterday I unveiled the party’s three key priorities to deliver a ‘Wales that works for you’.The three key policy priorities will be:• More Nurses – extending the More Nurses Bill to include mental health wards, maternity wards and community nurses• Smaller class sizes – establishing an Infant Class Size Reduction Grant, with funding prioritised towards the largest classes• Opportunity Economy – promoting a package supporting people’s aspirations by increasing the number of apprenticeships, supporting small businesses, helping people buy their first home, and delivering a childcare package that enables people to get back to work if they choose to.The vision we are putting forward in this election shows that we are the party that listens.
Who can argue with that .

Would any Politician campaign for less Nurses and Larger classes? Not supporting businesses etc?

Only the idea of increasing apprenticeships in that a new study from the UCL Institute of Education and the Nuffield Foundation looking at adult apprenticeships found that funding from the government is being used by some companies to support the training of existing employees who have been classified as apprentices. 

And there is some concern that some companies are using to use the term apprenticeship  to cover in house training or courses  thus keeping people who actually 90% of the time doing normal duties  as apprenticeships.

Still there nothing wrong with aspiration .

But for the Lib Dems  and as Borthlas points out we are likely to see similar pledges from all Parties except maybe UKip who will concentrate on EU Leave and Immigration.

We are likely to see little vision except from parties claiming to spend more on Health and Education but not which areas they intend to get the money from.

OK scrapping the  relief road.

But whether we seea vision for ending  the Piecemeal Devolution of Dipyn Bach and calls for Parity with Scotland is unlikely.

It may not be everyone's priorities but it may be a bit more interesting.


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