Letter: UK parties stick to Alice in Wonderland banalities

As ever, it is difficult to argue against the overall thrust of Martin Wolf’s article “Absence of honesty in UK election will undermine democracy” (Opinion, June 24).

However, while it is depressingly obvious that current political debate treats the electorate like children, we need to recognise that politicians and spin-doctors are not solely to blame for this infantilisation of the nation.

Media reporting, and not just in some of the Tory-supporting titles, illustrates why politicians fear to deviate an inch from their banal Alice in Wonderland scripts. Every comment is subjected to close textual analysis for any hint of a possible tax rise. Take the reaction to Sir Keir Starmer’s comment on protecting workers “who don’t have the ability to write a cheque when they get into trouble”. This was instantly presented as evidence of plans to “wallop” savers and homeowners.

Yet many of the same journalists, newspapers or broadcasters (excluding Wolf), then clutch their pearls in shocked horror when the Institute for Fiscal Studies suggests that the major parties are involved in a “fiscal fiction”.

No major party — and few media outlets — are free of blame for this state of affairs. Even the (relatively) saintly Chris Patten, then party Tory party chairman, proclaimed himself “gobsmacked” at the “tax bombshell” put forward in Labour’s rather modest manifesto in 1992.

Fast forward 25 years and Labour was bewailing Theresa May’s plans for social care funding as a “dementia tax”.

Meanwhile, the national debt keeps rising while public services get worse.

Chris Mahony
London N16, UK