Sunday, March 16, 2008

Political consistency

No Minister blogs about the return of Sir Roger Douglas to ACT.

A comment about Helen Clark's voting for the reforms led by Douglas and her backing of Douglas over Lange got me thinking about political (in)consistency.

Politics is pretty rife with politicians changing their minds:

"Read my lips - no new taxes"

"No GST - ever"

Yet this is not seen as a big problem - at least to the majority of the electorate.

Is there a way of ensuring that politicans do not become time inconsistent (economics jargon there - just had to do it!)? How important is that they stick to the same script? If we allow pragmatism, do we open the door to even bigger flip flops?

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