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Originally Posted by TheDaddy
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That's unworkable though. How do you easily define a promise and when is it ok to break it? People are quite partisan and these things are difficult to define. For example £350 million on the NHS is an 'aspiration'. The Liberal Democrats promised not to raise tuition fees but they didn't actually win the election. What do you then do about changing circumstances which make promises made in good faith untenable?
Even the fact this has been related to Corbyn's tuition fees promise is dodgy. The manifesto doesn't actually promise existing students will get their debt wiped out and that promise seems to be a mixture of a vague 'we'll see what we can do' answer from Corbyn to the NME and other Labour politicians promising it. Would it still count as illegal in that case?
It just seems to stem from an unhealthy desire people have to criminalise their political opponents. Obviously I do not think people should lie to win elections but with the definition of what counts as a lie so disputed it seems a bad idea to make it illegal. Everyone will just be setting the police on each other.