A question of trust

An interesting new poll from Politics Home of 1,200 voters has found that less than half of Labour voters expect the party to fulfill its manifesto pledges.

50% of Labour voters think it is fairly, or very unlikely to fulfill its manifesto pledges, which is a tellingly high number. The equivalent figure for Conservative and Lib Dem voters' confidence in their parties are that 22% think their Party is fairly/very unlikely to fulfill its manifesto pledges.

While not wanting to disect voters' confidence in the political parties they support, this does smack of inevitability.

To imagine that there would be no fallout, or decline in trust in the Government, from its shabby decision to renege on its manifesto pledge to give voters a say on the Lisbon Treaty would have been naive in the extreme.

There are other factors at play here to be sure, but manifestos are a question of trust and abandoning manifesto pledges are a betrayal of that trust. If half of Labour voters now feel unable to trust that the Party will deliver on its promises, then those MPs that voted against holding a referendum can have no-one to blame but themselves if they fail to win back their seats at the next election.