Another day, another Tory broken promise

A year ago, almost to the day, the Conservatives promised to abolish all regional quangos.

• Unelected Regional assemblies – abolish
• Select Committees for the English regions – abolish
• Regional housing quangos – abolish
• Regional planning quangos – abolish
• Regional spatial strategies and housing targets – abolish
• Targets and surveillance of Councils by Whitehall and regional government – abolish
• Many of the specific grants – abolish – to be replaced by general grant
• Council Tax capping - abolish

Today?  Another broken promise.

This morning the Western Morning News was reporting a Tory U-turn over their promise to abolish Regional Development Agencies, followed quickly by Regeneration Renewal (majority owned by Tory Lord Heseltine) issuing a clarification from Caroline Spelman and Ken Clarke: Regional Development Agencies will be abolished and replaced with local development agencies formed by local authorities which may or may not be formed on a regional basis.

But what about the rest of the regional quangos?  The unelected regional assemblies?  Select committees for English regions?  Regional housing and planning quangos?

There was a long-standing Tory promise to abolish the unelected Regional Assemblies but Labour stole their thunder with that one and they're already going.  And the rest of them?

In a “Q&A” section at the bottom of the letter, the pair insisted they did not want to scrap regional agencies, saying: “We want to reform the system, not scrap it.”

- Birmingham Post

Broken promise after broken promise, that's all we get from Devious Dave and the dishonest Tories.  The promise to abolish regional quangos was unequivocal, what the Tories actually stand for is not.

Devious Dave's dishonest record

A heated discussion with two Tory activists on Twitter has prompted me to take a look at Cast Iron Dave's record on keeping promises.

He promised a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty/EU Constitution - a "cast iron guarantee" - and broke the promise.  Instead he's promised to "renegotiate" the UK's relationship with the European Empire - an empty promise as it requires the unanimous agreement of every member state which, as anyone with even the most basic understanding of how the European Empire works knows, is never going to happen.

He promised to stop MPs elected in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland from voting on English laws so they can't hide behind the fact that what they're doing doesn't affect their own constituents.  "For English-only legislation, we would have a sort of English grand committee" he said almost exactly a year ago to the day.  Now he says he will stop them from amending English laws but not from voting on them.  Another broken promise from Cast Iron Dave.

He told the Conservative Party Spring Conference this week that it was "Time for Change" but how can he promise change when the European Empire makes all the important decisions?  Tinkering round the edges doesn't constitute the kind of change he's promising.  Another broken promise from Devious Dave.

Cast Iron Dave is a dishonest man.  He has dumped the traditional Tory ideals of euroscepticism, libertarianism, personal responsibility and rolling back the state and instead adopted the Labour ideals of eurofederalism, authoritarianism and the nanny state.  All that's different is the colour of their ties.

Whether Gordon Brown or Devious Dave win the election makes no real difference to the vast majority of us.  The European Empire will continue to run the country while the Prime Minister exercises the role of a regional administrator, making local laws as long as they don't contradict the directives issued by their imperial masters.

Don't waste your vote on the LibLabCon in the general election, vote for the only party that can make a difference by withdrawing from the European Empire and restoring sovereignty to Westminster.