Dishonesty or delusion?

It's fortunate that the election campaign is only six weeks or so in length, and that the parties only have one crack at publishing their manifestos, because otherwise my recent caricature of the campaign promises - for example, council tax frozen until 2112 - wouldn't have been too far from reality as the politicians crudely tried to outbid each other.

But such cynicism was neatly displayed yesterday on the occasion of the SNP's manifesto launch. Having had its two-year council tax freeze emulated by the other parties, Alex Salmond exploited 'last mover advantage' to trump the others with a five-year freeze.

Question marks over the affordability of this, and the fact that it's ultimately local authorities that decide council tax levels* are, of course, irrelevant, because all that really matters at the moment is electoral advantage, although whether the likes of this could break the back of voter tolerance of such opportunism is a moot point.

But opportunist it is, because there's no compelling rationale for extending the freeze to the whole of the next parliamentary term from the "clear and firm" pledge offered last October. Clear and firm, of course, until crude electoral politics dictate otherwise.

But this lack of realism and affordability is a corollary of upping the electoral ante, and this was also neatly demonstrated by the SNP's latest promise regarding renewable energy sources, another corollary being widespread incredulity from many of the experts on these matters, except, predictably, the renewables industry itself.

But the kicking into the long grass of the party's 2007 promise to replace the council tax with a local income tax represents one example of an ill-thought out policy which merely underlines that the characteristic Salmond confidence is perhaps more credibly viewed as chutzpah.

And to blame the LIT shambles on factors like the state of the economy and the Scotland Bill represents the usual crude blame-shifting: history demonstrates that the latter is merely a convenient excuse, and if LIT can't withstand an economic downturn then what's the point of introducing it?

Thus while the SNP's manifesto and 'launch party' may have topped the polls in relation to gloss, glamour and glitz, as regards the substantive commitments it's simply the usual question of deciding the extent to which they're based on dishonesty or delusion, or a bit of both.

*Therefore fiscal autonomy is clearly OK when it suits, but the SNP's inconsistency on this was neatly exposed by Gordon Brewer on Newsnicht last night when Nicola Sturgeon seemed quite happy with the idea of controlling local government funding and certain policies, while leaving awkward questions of possible job losses to local authorities.