Saturday 7 December 2019

How long are the lies good for?


Election promises have always come with caveats and been subject to fudgy wording, but the PM has excelled himself in the number of different categories which he has applied.  The strongest category is, famously, dying in a ditch, and we know from experience that that is good for around 110 days.  Assuming less strong promises are broken more easily and that the additional lifespan of each type of promise is roughly equal, we can calculate how long each type of promise is good for, which gives us a table like this:

Number of days
Expiry Date
Commitment
15
27 December
Pledge
30
11 January
Promise
46
27 January
Guarantee
62
12 February
Cast-iron guarantee
78
28 February
Absolute cast-iron guarantee
94
15 March
Die in a ditch
110
31 March

That gives the manifesto a 'use by' date of 31st March and a 'best before' date of 27th December.  So, if you happen to have a copy of the Tory manifesto in your store cupboard, it’s worth bearing in mind that it will probably start to go off before the end of the year.

4 comments:

CapM said...

Didn't Johnson say to his constituents at the last general election that if elected he'd do everything he could to stop the new Heathrow runway being built including lying down in front of the bulldozers.
If so Martyrdom might be the ultimate Johnson commitment with a shelf life of a couple of years. If things don't go his way in the next week it will be interesting to see if he declares an intention to become a martyr again and more interestingly by what method.

John Dixon said...

I can only assume that that must have been a different Boris Johnson.

dafis said...

John I think you answered your own rhetorical question in your previous episode. About a day + or - a few hours seems to be the median, with odd subject matter lasting a touch longer. His eye movement says it all. Inside that skull lurks a deviant juvenile whose repetitive message to self goes something like " Oh f**k how do I fob that one off ?" Absolute waste of space and I am not a Remainer and rapidly moving towards anti Brexit also ! Just let's get out of UK sharpish.

CapM said...

Johnson bulldozer vow

https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/top-stories/bulldozer-brought-to-pm-s-constituency-for-johnson-to-fulfil-his-heathrow-vow-1-6395109