The promise of pain

How can politicians get voters to vote for them? This is the question all political parties face when an election is coming.

In most situations, the answer is simple: you tell voters how much better their lives will be if they choose your party rather than those of your rivals.

For example, you say that you will cut voters' taxes so that they will have more of their own money left to spend. Or you promise to provide nice things like new hospitals, more teachers, new roads and free trips to the pub every Thursday night.

OK, I made that last bit up, but you get the picture. You tell the voters that you — and only you — can improve their standard of living and quality of life. Simple, eh?

Well, yes, in many cases, this formula actually does work. And yet voters, despite what politicians often seem to think, are not entirely stupid. (Stupid yes, but not entirely stupid.)

Sometimes, voters realize there is no money left in the kitty and that politicians won't be able to pay for any extravagant promises.

At times like this, politicians often go to the other extreme and promise voters as much pain as possible. The best example of this at the moment is in Britain, where an election is likely in May 2010.

Gordon Brown's Labour Party and David Cameron's Conservatives are currently locked in a battle to persuade voters how much worse they can make their lives.

This isn't quite how they phrase it, of course. But Britain's huge and growing budget deficit — likely to be around £200 billion, or 12.5 per cent of GDP, this year — means that some drastic savings will have to be made in the medium term.

Because significant spending cuts are hard to make without hitting essential public services, there will have to be a large rise in taxes after the election. Yet neither of Britain's main parties is promising that. They realize that voters can't stomach that much truth and pain.