Political Party Manifestos

Any time now our political parties will be publishing their manifestos, but are they worth the paper that they are written on? I'm just going to consider the Conservative party's manifesto, as logically with my education and lifestyle I should be a core Tory supporter.

Whilst I never read the actual Conservative manifesto before the last general election and relied upon reports in the media, I am far more concerned about what the manifesto doesn’t contain.

I don’t recall the Tories mentioning anything about Gay Marriage in the 2010 manifesto. Whilst I can appreciate that a manifesto can't cover every possible contingency and that events might make it necessary for any government to introduce unanticipated legislation, this was not so in the case of gay marriage. There was no reason for the hasty action with minimal consultation and it could have waited until the forthcoming election and been included in the party manifesto. But, in my view, the party took the cowardly approach, didn’t consult with the majority population, and pushed it through hoping that most of the electorate would have forgotten by the time of the election.

Nor did the manifesto mention entering foreign wars for the sake of regime change. Again the government rushed into action without any real thought. If it hadn't been for the rare event of Parliament acting to prevent the government going to war against Assad in Syria, we would now be fighting alongside the evil ISIS who happily decapitate any non-believer without a moment's thought. However you look at the situation, Assad is by far the lesser of the two evils.
Then, of course there is Libya. Our aerial intervention was designed to prevent civilian deaths resulting from the fighting between rebels and the forces of Gaddafi. Here, again we opted to support the rebels and the media rejoiced at Gaddafi's death, but has this improved things? Seemingly not, as we now have two "governments" in Libya busy fighting each other and civilian deaths, either due to fighting or starvation are never ending. And Cameron claimed this was a great success - I wonder what would have had to have happened for him to feel that we had failed?

Then what did the manifesto say about our military? Did it propose cutting them to the bare bones and relying on a part time army of reservists? Did it mention scrapping the Harrier. Did it mention aircraft carriers with no aircraft? I'm sure it didn't as I don't remember any coverage of the subject in the media at the time.

And then there is Scotland. Were the English offered any say in the decision to give extra powers to Scotland whilst leaving England at Scotland's mercy in the event of a coalition?

That's what the manifesto didn't say, now let's look at what it did say.
The most important promise for a majority of the electorate was to reduce immigration and Cameron even said he wanted it reduced to tens of thousands. This has been totally ignored with the current political line being that immigration is good for the country. Tell that to those trying to buy houses, get their children into English speaking schools or waiting for treatment on the NHS. I'm sure they will all believe that immigration is good for us!

What will I be looking for in the manifesto?
One priority is to ensure that Christians in this country are able to practice their faith without interference. Seemingly, you can be of any other faith, or even no faith, and can claim that you are being discriminated against if you are not allowed to practice it and wear its symbols in public. Yet Christians are being sacked because they wear a cross or are asked to carry out work which is contrary to their beliefs, such as assisting with abortions or registering gay marriages. This article in Breitbart is worth reading.

Another is the issue of unbiased and independent policing. The failure of the police forces in both Rotherham and Oxford to do anything about gangs of Muslims grooming young white females for fear of being called racist is symptomatic of the political correctness of our police. The "Police and Crime Commissioners" have done little, if anything, to change the situation as many are political hacks who failed elsewhere. One, who has now resigned, was actually a councillor in Rotherham whilst all the abuse was taking place! Even now the police seem more interested in historic crimes committed by so-called celebrities rather than dealing with present day abuse. Today's reports of the “closing down” of police investigations into a child sex abuse allegations in Cyril Smith’s time is clearly a scandal, and needs urgent government action, although, unlike gay marriage, I doubt if it will be seen as a Cameron priority.

I await the manifestos with interest, but I doubt if any of those from the major parties will dissuade me from supporting UKIP.