Which party’s election manifesto is the most nicely written?

Terry Eagleton, literary theorist, scours the manifestos for any wit or originality among the bland promises

For the last century or so, by far the finest manifestos have been the work of artists, not politicians. From the futurists and dadaists to the surrealists and situationists, no self-respecting group of poets or painters could afford to be without such a public statement. Most of them were trenchant, provocative broadsides intent on scandalising the middle classes. They were couched in extravagantly metaphorical language, full of capital letters, and sometimes liberally sprinkled with obscenities. Whereas political manifestos explain how they will build the nation up, the typical avant-garde manifesto describes how it intends to smash it to pieces.

This election’s manifestos, one regrets to report, remain unenlivened by a single obscenity. Ukip’s bellicose little document aside, they are decent, civilised, kid-gloved affairs, reluctant for the most part to go on the offensive against the other parties for fear of negative campaigning. By a striking coincidence, almost all of them advocate a prosperous economy, a better deal for young people, a better deal for old people, a better deal for farmers, babies and badgers, a world-class educational system, affordable housing, controlled but fair immigration, the best possible start in life for your child, higher wages for everybody and equal opportunities for all. Only the Greens break with this bland consensus by having a special policy for helping bees. Not a single manifesto has the guts to declare its intention to discriminate against people with freckles, strip the inhabitants of Swansea of their civil rights, deport Bruce Forsyth or promise a free bottle of whisky a day to every household. Most of them promise to put the patient first when it comes to the NHS, rather than breaking with this banal orthodoxy and prioritising syringes or stethoscopes instead.

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