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April 14, 2005
Numbers
Slippery little things aren't they?
'Just One Manifesto', reported yesterday, was in fact the second manifesto. The True Blue Conservatives (TBC) had released theirs on Monday. More of an escape than a release really; no-one noticed. It's smaller than ZNL's version, some 7,500 words (not including the scribbled words) and 32 pages (which end at page 30 due to some rather odd page numbering).
Here's a flavour: -
Oh dear Oh dear. If you're going to aim your manifesto at the lowest common denominator then, firstly, don't make it obvious, and secondly, don't use cursive script (that's 'joined up writing' for those of you in ZNL).
Talking of numbers, how many pages did the ZNL manifesto have? Yes, it is a trick question. The downloadable version has 56 single sided pages. ZNL published it in booklet form with 112 pages by the simple expedient of folding each sheet in half. Of course, if you printed double sided you'd have 28 pages of information. But, meekly following the ZNL diktat, the meeja all said it was 112 pages. That's what you get for believing election promises.
And there were lots of numbers about the economy. And we had the IMF and the IFC telling us that bits didn't add up. (surprise!) And we had ZNL saying that TBC was going to cut services and spend too much. All very difficult to get to the bottom of, and hardly worth the bother. Like always both major plans depend on HUGE 'efficiency savings' being made in the administration of govenrment. This is always promised and never delivered, so what you really want to know is not the plans, but the philosophy behind them. Judging from ZNL's campaign song they just think 'it's a beautiful day', which is suspiciously close to 'you've never had it so good'. TBC ask if you're thinking what they're thinking. Hard to know really...
I kind of suspect that yesterday's conviction of an illegal immigrant for terrorist offences (the poison factory case) may play well for ZNL. They're pushing the line that the minister concerned (Blunkett the blind babe hunter) worked tirelessly behind the scenes, protecting britons without alarming them. Maybe so, but only one of the defendants was convicted and he was already in goal for murder. Certainly not a triumph. It's all being linked too, to the War in Iraq. ZNL was doing great things to stop terrorists but really couldn't talk about it too much and had to take the outrageous brickbats on the chin. They're not really for war, just protecting britons. But Blair looks a little forwar in this pic.
Thanks to Political Betting for showing this. And would that be Johann Sebastian or Carl Philipp Emanuel who disagrees with Blair?
STOP PRESS
Lib Dems release manifesto. Actually 3. Well, actually 2 since the Welsh don't get theirs till 15th April. No link to a pdf file this time, The Orange Party is using new technology, but you can get a somewhat formatted document here. As a middle of the road party they've got a middle of the road number of words in it (around 16,000). If you read it on the web it has 20 pages, if you put it into Word it has 40 pages. Cunningly they've used small writing on the web. A flavour: -
Messy, confusing, hard to read, but earnest. Get a publicist Kennedy.
Today's Political betting Projected Election Outcome LAB majority 64 seats
Posted by Flo Ting Voe Tah at April 14, 2005 09:13 AM