With elections approaching in Scotland and Wales, parties are beginning to set out their values and priorities. This is what elections are meant to do: give people a clear choice about the direction their country should take.
And yet, alongside the party political broadcasts and multi-coloured rosettes, I’d note a long-term problem. While parties invest enormous effort in what they want to achieve, much less is said about how those ambitions would actually be delivered. The result is a pattern many people will recognise: bold promises, mediocre results, alongside a creeping sense that politics struggles to turn good intentions into improved lives.
Part of the reason lies in the incentives of campaigning. Elections reward clarity, confidence and simplicity. Red buses; education, education, education; better together. That’s why you see a whole manifesto condensed into five bullet points on the back of a postcard.
Many seasoned political professionals believe voters are unforgiving of complexity and wary of long explanations about systems, capacity or trade-offs. Campaign professionals sometimes refer to this as the Ming vase strategy apparently adopted by Labour during the last general election: when you are ahead, do not touch anything fragile. Keep things simple. Avoid detail that might crack under pressure or policy proposals that are risky or controversial.
Ronald Reagan said: “If you are explaining, you are losing.” In campaign terms, explaining how policy will be delivered can sound like uncertainty. Talking openly about constraints can be mistaken for a lack of ambition and thinking about delivery is pushed out and replaced by high level aspirations.
But governing is nothing like campaigning. Delivery is where policy either makes a difference or falls short. It depends on public services, institutions, skills, data, incentives and long-term coordination. Indeed the current Labour government was strongly criticised by the Institute for Government for insufficient planning in opposition for what they would do in government.
Many of the hardest challenges facing the country today, whether in health, social care, climate or the economy, are not short of political commitment.
Clearly, repeated gaps between promise and outcome take a toll. Governments can win elections on strong mandates and still struggle to deliver.
Over time, that mismatch erodes trust, not only in the government of the day but also in democratic institutions and processes. People stop doubting particular policies and parties and start doubting whether politics can deliver at all.
Over the years, I’ve met many exceptionally smart, dedicated but time-pressed people who have been charged with writing party manifestos. They’ve outlined sausage factory processes, complete with late night editing sessions and last-minute changes phoned in to the printers. It often sounded like no way to run a rodeo.
None of this is an argument against elections, or for turning campaigns into technical exercises. Elections should remain moments of choice. But they cannot be the only place where we kick the tyres of public policy.
One practical step might be for the state to provide shared, nonpartisan state support focused on delivery planning in the runup to elections. This could include structured briefings on institutional capacity, independent assessments of delivery risks, or safe spaces where parties can explore implementation challenges without political penalty.
The aim would not be to judge the politics of proposals, but to improve their realism. In countries like the Netherlands, Australia and Ireland there are institutions who have a role in working with political parties on the affordability and feasibility of their manifesto pledges.
Over time, this kind of support could help shift expectations. Parties would still compete on ambition, but seriousness about delivery could become part of the culture of democratic competition. Voters, in turn, could have greater confidence that elections are not just about winning arguments, but about making progress.
At a recent event I attended with Professor Graeme Roy, he talked openly about being asked if the Scottish Fiscal Commission could have a similar role in future. One could also imagine the Office for Budget Responsibility, the Office of the Future Generations Commissioner in Wales or the Scottish Parliament Information Centre all playing a similar role for different elections.
I can’t imagine when candidates knock on doors in Aberdeen or Abergavenny this spring they’ll find many people demanding better resources for political parties. But those same voters will surely punish the party or parties that gained power after these elections if their political pledges turned out to be empty promises.
Stuart Mackinnon is head of communications and advocacy at Carnegie UK