Return of the Pledge Card

Just when you thought it was safe to walk past a Labour activist's pocket the pledge cards are back. Yeah Gordon Brown will be unveiling Labour's 2010 pledge card this weekend.

• secure the recovery
  
• raise family living standards
  
• build a hi-tech economy
  
• protect frontline investment in policing, schools, childcare and the NHS – with a new guarantee of cancer test results within a week
  
• strengthen fairness in communities through controlled immigration, guarantees of education, apprenticeships and jobs for young people and a crackdown on antisocial behaviour.

Following Wednesday's budget we know that "Future Fairness for All" doesn't include in the tax system and so it is obviously missed off the pledges. Instead money is going to be spent on state funding citizens' rights to take anti-social offenders to court. People will be entitled to take out civil actions and get funded by the state if police are not taking action within a set time. So that sounds like another target for our overstretched police force.

There is also a promise of more constitution reform than ever before. However, the headline policy in that is the 13-year-old pledge to bring legislation to have an elected House of Lords.

As Matt Porter the Guardian's creative director says:

"The political message is only revealed on closer inspection, which perhaps is the point - voters are more interested in mueseli or medication than policy."

Judge for yourself.



Their guarantees of education, apprenticeships and jobs for young people is only after six demoralising months of unemployment. Having graduated when I did in the last recession nothing is worse than having finished your education and got no work to go into. But Nick Clegg below has promised that the Lib Dems won't wait that long, but after 90 days young people will be placed in a job, training or internship. It is time to give hope to the thousands of young people who have been hit hard while Labour failed to secure us from boom and bust.