How can you vote for people or parties who won't reveal their plans?

There were some leaked details of Tory plans for making further cuts to welfare spending - benefits cuts effectively - at the weekend. IDS was forced to come out and state that no decisions had yet been taken.

Dave has said that the Tories will not increase VAT and will tend toward reducing the tax take - indeed they have taken significant numbers of low earners out of tax altogether during this parliament. The Tories have also said that they will reduce the deficit further if re-elected through more - and significant - cuts obviously.
 
Labour has said that it won't raise taxes other than the introduction of the Mansion tax and the reintroduction of the 50p top rate which they brought in for about 6 weeks at the end of the last parliament and which actually resulted in a reduction in tax revenue. They have also said that they will not raise National Insurance contributions.

Labour have also said that they will balance the books during the next parliament - so effectively Labour will have to make even deeper cuts than the Tories plan to and for which they are currently being castigated. Indeed Ed Miliband alluded to this during his interview with Paxo last week, but was not picked up on it.

When pressed by Andrew Neil yesterday, Labour's Work and Pensions spokesperson Rachel Reeves admitted that they would have to undertake some 'investment borrowing' to meet requirements. That's 'borrowing' in order to reduce our debts. Good luck with that Rachel.

But like the Tories Labour will not put any detail on their plans for delivering cuts and savings that will see the UK coming back into financial health following the disaster visited on us - by Labour - during the 2000s.

Both parties will benefit from a growing economy and consequent increased tax revenues (although one has to wonder how long it would be a growing economy if Labour gets in).

But neither party is prepared to put any detail on their plans for cuts before the election. And these cuts will be amongst the biggest planks of the UK's economic policy going forward. They will be the main 'weapon' used in reducing the deficit. But neither party will tell us what they plan to do before the election?

Because they're both terrified of losing votes.

Sorry but this is simply not good enough. How can people be expected to vote for parties that will not tell us what they'll do if we elect them?

How far away do we have to get from the concept of our politicians working for us; that they enact plans and policies that we agree with based on our vote, before we start to wake up to what is becoming a complete sham?

I often use the phrase 'if only' in an ironic way, but not this time. If only there were some way in which we - the voters - could say to the parties 'We will not take part in a vote on May 7th unless you have spelled out exactly what you will do in government.'

What both parties are saying now is: 'We won't tell you what we'll be doing to make the massive cuts the country needs until after the election (when you will have no influence over our decisions)'. This is nowhere near good enough in a democracy.

And if you're happy with this state of affairs you're mad. Or, given that they clearly have most to lose from being transparent, a Labour supporter. I'm finding that it's sometimes difficult to differentiate between the two things, but on this issue the Tories are just as worthy of criticism.

Thanks for reading.