Another promise which you can bet will be broken

If you think politicians are bad at keeping promises, just look at the record of those made by journalists and celebrities.

Russell Brand has apparently promised to move to Syria if someone buys him a first class ticket.

If I thought for an instant that he meant it I'd be very tempted to dip into my savings for the cost of a one-way plane ticket.

Tempted, but not enough to do it, however. That's the sort of thing which works better as a joke about hypothetical actions than as something actually done in the real world.

I have zero respect for Russell Brand, but do not hate him enough to want him to be the central attraction on Jihadi John's next snuff video, which might well be the consequence if he did go to Syria. The fact that he is a critic of the government would mean absolutely nothing to the butchers of the so-called "Islamic State" who would undoubtedly have a spontaneous orgasm at the thought of beheading a British "celebrity."

Of course, there is a rather long list of recent foolish promises by various commentators and journalists as well as "celebrities" to move abroad or take various actions in a state of nature given particular elections. The track record of keeping such promises is rather worse that that of promises in election manifestoes being implemented.

Paul O'Grady AKA Lily Savage appears to be still in the UK and appears to have broken his promise to leave Britain for Venice if the Conservatives win the election.

Katie Hopkins did not have to act on her promise to leave the country if Labour won, as they didn't. She also promised to dance naked if Ed Balls lost his seat, which of course he did, but as the exact promise was to "dance naked round my house" she may well have kept it and the rest of us would be none the wiser.

Dan Hodges promised three years ago to "streak naked down Whitehall in a Nigel Farage mask whilst singing Land of Hope and Glory" if UKIP surpassed 6% of the vote in 2015

After UKIP did get double that share, he has promised to do something of the sort as a charity event, though I am not aware that this has happened yet.

Paddy Ashdown ate a chocolate hat after promising to eat his hat if the BBC Exit poll was accurate. Alistair Campbell was presented with a chocolate kilt on the same programme for a similar reason.



You can read a summary here which the Telegraph put together shortly after the election on the status of such promises. To the best of my knowledge there has been no change on the status of any of these promises since early May when this was published.

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