Next up is food supplements - they say there's over 200 "nutrient sources" accepted as safe by the Food Standards Agency, but that are omitted from an EU directive, so may become illegal from August 2005. The Conservatives want to opt-out of this. However, saying "the FSA says they're safe" is, to me, an inadequate reason. They don't explain the nature of these "nutrient sources." I suspect they're all sorts of chemicals used as additives in heavily processed food. Just because there's not been any in-depth study into the long-term effects of a particular man-made chemical on human health, doesn't make that chemical safe. I'm highly suspicious of this proposal--I suspect there to be more to it than there seems.

A number of business-and-tax-related proposals smack to me of pandering to those voters with a...higher level of wealth. I have nothing against people with more money than me, or I'd not have many friends at all. But I find it funny that already the conservative manifesto is beginning to give an overall impression that, to a degree, it's a case of making cuts to public services in order to benefit those people with a higher-than-average level of wealth. Granted, some of their proposals for cutting red tape sound actually pretty reasonable, and unlikely to have a negative impact on public services. But then again, there are a number of proposals that are suspicious, or downright blatantly favouring those with above-average wealth.

The second document is on the economy, another of the "big issues" that seems to hang over every general election. What strikes me as funny about this document is the cover - it says, "Conservatives will deliver lower taxes and value for money" which you could take as meaning "lower taxes and lower value for money." Methinks a quick swap would've made all the difference. Much of what's in this document is just covering ground already covered in the previous one, but in a little more detail, and fluffed up with more personal language. There's some more stuff about distancing ourselves from the EU. At the minute, whilst I'm not anti-Europe, from the stories I read, the EU appears to be the result of bringing together a group of corrupt politicians - an organisation of almost total corruption, if you will. Distancing ourselves from it for the time being may well be a good idea. There's mentions of tax cuts, but no details at all, except on the specific council tax discounts for pensioners. This last one is fair enough, but on income tax cuts and the like, I'd be itnerested to see whether it'll be a case of cuts that favour the better off more than others, or vice versa, or cuts that benefit more or less equally.